After yesterday's violent gap up in stocks across the globe in response to the "expected" outcome from the French election, today the risk on sentiment has continued if to a lesser extent, with stocks in Europe, Asia all rising while S&P futures point to a higher open. Yen, gold decline, while the euro traded as high as 1.09 this morning before fading some gains; oil is up modestly.
Even as the US retail industry is in a tailspin of historic proportions, the ad spending market must be better than ever, because on Monday Google parent Alphabet closed up 2.3% at a new record high, and as Bloomberg pointed out, the company's market value crossed above $600 billion for the first time ever.
Investors chose not to wait for GOOGL earnings, and bought up shares ahead of the announcement driven by positive analyst comments ahead of 1Q results on April 27 and as the S&P North American tech index rose 1.4% with broader markets rallying.
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 key economic releases this week are the durable goods report on Thursday and Q1 GDP on Friday. It iweek is the busiest week of earnings season, with 40% of S&P 500 equity cap reporting. In addition, there are a few scheduled speaking engagements by Fed officials this week.
Wall Street still exudes widespread optimism that 2017 will provide another year of solid gains for stocks amid stable albeit unspectacular economic growth and only gentle interest rate rises. However, as The FT details, all is not well in reality, and the following seven charts will hearten investors of a more bearish persuasion...