HONG KONG : The euro gained a fraction in early trade on Monday following French President Emmanuel Macron's comfortable Sunday defeat of far-right rival Marine Le Pen, the outcome largely expected by markets and political analysts.
With 97 per cent of votes counted, Macron was on course for a solid 57.4 per cent of the vote, interior ministry figures showed. In his victory speech he acknowledged that many people had only voted for him only to keep Le Pen out, and he promised to address the sense of many French that their living standards were slipping.
The euro, along with most of its major peers, has been bruised by an upward march by the dollar that is boosted by rising U.S. Treasury yields. Markets are repositioning themselves for an aggressive programme of rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve.