presidential election

Ahead of the first round of the French elections on Sunday, Deutsche Bank's equity strategist Sebastian Raedler again reminds his bank's clients and the seemingly unperturbed markets, that despite the  tightening of the poll numbers among the four front-runners, European equities show little sign of pricing in a meaningful political risk premium. In fact, as he notes below, European equities appear to not have priced in even a modest political risk discount.

France holds the first round of its Presidential election this weekend.

The big worry for the markets is the fact that anti-Euro candidate Marin Le Pen could potentially win.

Now, the polls show Le Pen as having NO chance of becoming Prime Minister. 

Of course, the polls also showed that BREXIT would not happen and Hillary Clinton had a 98% of becoming President.

We all know how those turned out.

President Trump tweeted on Friday morning that this week's "terrorist attack in Paris" will have "a big effect" on the country's presidential election set for Sunday.

Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 21, 2017

Global markets were oddly calm on Friday, the last day of trading before the first round of France's closely fought presidential election, with European stocks posting modest declines ahead of Sunday's main event, Asian shares rising, and set for first weekly gain in the past month, while U.S. futures were unchanged. French bond yields hit three-months low even as the euro has seen some recent weakness.

I'm going out on a limb here and calling this one 'fake news' on behalf of CNN, Washpo and the other shills who are trying every trick in the bag to avenge the loss of Hillary Clinton and the hacking of John Podesta's email box. This is all about vengeance. Nothing would delight Pizza Podesta more than visiting Assange inside of a maximum protected prison.