Euphoria Returns: European Stocks Soar, Dax Hits Record; S&P Futs Surge In “French Relief Rally”

Risk is definitely on this morning as European shares soar, led by French stocks and a new record high in Germany’s Dax, after a “French relief rally” in which the first round of the country’s presidential elections prompted investors to bet that establishment candidate Emmanuel Macron will win a runoff vote next month, and who is seen as a 61% to 39% favorite to defeat Le Pen according to the latest just released Opinionway poll.
For those who may have missed yesterday’s events, here is a quick recap from DB:
The fact that Macron and Le Pen have made it through to the second round was in line with the most likely scenario for the last several weeks and is a big market positive given their head-to-head polling numbers but make no mistake viewed over a longer-term horizon its another political shockwave as the two mainstream party’s candidates have been eliminated in the first round for the first time under the 5th Republic. A reminder that the polls have suggested that in a run-off Macron has consistently been 20-30% ahead of Marine Le Pen. It would take a numerical shock perhaps 5-10 times larger than Brexit or Trump for Le Pen to win. It does seem that the prefirst round polls have been relatively accurate so Macron should rightly be red hot favourite now. The fact that many of the losing candidates (not Melenchon) have been throwing their support behind Macron helps reinforce this.
So this was a big anti-establishment vote but a tame one for now due to the fact that a market friendly candidate made it through and is very much expected to win. The first round polls were close enough that you couldn’t have ruled out a very market unfriendly Le Pen/Melenchon run-off but now that risk has been eliminated the second round is perhaps more straight forward. The latest numbers with 97% counted are Macron 23.9%, Le Pen 21.4%, with Fillon and Melenchon with just over 19% each.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Apr 24, 2017.