France

With global stock markets basking in the afterglow of Dow crossing 20,000 for the first time, on Thursday they propelled higher in sympathy with the US, as Asia and Europe are trading solidly in the green, as is the dollar which rebounded strongly off a 5 week low. Copper touched the highest price since November after reports of lower production. Global government bonds extended declines as France’s 10-year yield breached 1% for the first time in more than a year. Gold declined.

French financial prosecutors said on Wednesday they had opened a preliminary probe into the possible misuse of public funds following a press report about conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon's wife working for him as a parliamentary assistant.

The frontrunner in the April-May election has acknowledged his wife Penelope had worked for him when he was a legislator, but has fiercely denied the report in Le Canard Enchaine that she earned a big salary for work she never did.

The day the Dow crosses 20,000 may finally be here, because with DJIA futures trading 65 points higher in premarket trading, added to yesterday's close of 19,912 and latest record high in the S&P, it means that all it will take is a modest of only 25 points for the critical Dow threshold to be finally breached. Celebrating the upcoming record, world stocks hit a 19-month high on Wednesday, lifted by strong Japanese trade data, strong European company earnings and hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump will press ahead with a large fiscal spending package.

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Conventional wisdom suggests National Front candidate Marine le Pen will make it to the second round in French elections, then lose in a landslide to whoever her opponent happens to be.

I believe le Pen’s odds of winning it outright are far better than most think.

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Chart from Wikipedia, with image clips added.

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France are threatening President-elect Donald Trump with “serious consequences” if he moves the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault warned Trump against the embassy move, saying that it would threaten peace in the region. Yahoo News reports: Speaking as 70 countries gather in Paris to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, Ayrault told French TV he believed Trump would find it “impossible” to fulfil the pledge he made during his campaign to transfer the embassy.