EUR 9.28 For Business Accounts Only

The Morning Track en-marche

- The Morning Track - En Marche? by Bob Savage
http://track.com/articles/the-morning-track-en-marche/

Underwhelmed. Macron won in France with a huge 66% to 34% margin as predicted by the polls, and markets aren’t surprised or that excited with a buy-the-rumor-sell-the-fact approach to this headline. Perhaps, markets are reflecting the balance of risks with a new balance towards growth and rate normalization. The ECB speakers this week are worth watching as the French election excuse is now gone and taper talk is going to be in vogue. Also notable is that Merkel’s CDU Party swept the Schlewig-Holstein elections making the next North-Rhine Westphalia election May 14th that much more important for driving down German Sept 24 election risks. In France, much of the left supported the new center-right candidate but the extreme left abstained. This was an election with low turnout and more voters against Le Pen than for Macron. It was also an election that highlighted the division of France that seem to plague most of the developed world where pessimism about jobs, the gover
nment and globalization are attracting more populist, non-traditional parties. Le Pen did best in France with the lower income and lower educated. The focus now turns to the June legislative votes to see if the fledgling new party of En Marche will garner enough votes to give Macron any real authority to make his reform agenda for the French economy happen. Overnight news from China was also less robust – as the trade report shows a drop in both imports and exports with less exports to US, Europe being notable. The Australian housing data also missed while confidence rose making net not enough to help the AUD as it suffers further from metals.