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Eurozone stocks, euro drop as traders look past Macron win

New York - Eurozone stocks slid Monday and the euro retreated from a six-month dollar high as investors looked beyond Emmanuel Macron's French presidential victory to bet on whether he will be able to push through economic reforms.

The European single currency reached $1.1023, the highest level since November, at around 20:30 on Sunday after it became clear that the pro-EU former investment banker Macron had won. However, the euro soon fell back and stood at $1.0926 near 21:00 on Monday.

US stocks stayed within a tight range, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq eked out fresh records.

The Paris stock market meanwhile ended the day down 0.9%. Frankfurt slipped 0.2% while London, outside the eurozone, edged up 0.05%.

"Market reaction to Emmanuel Macron's victory over the weekend has definitely been a case of buy the rumor and sell the news, with the euro unable to build on the gains of last two weeks and the CAC40 slipping back after initially opening higher," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

"While the sense of relief is palpable amongst European leaders, markets have moved on and shifted their focus to the likelihood that the new French President will be able to enact his reform programme, one of which is to pledge to reduce unemployment to seven percent, a level only seen once in the last 30 years, at the beginning of 2008," he added.

Earlier Monday, Tokyo stocks surged to a 17-month high on the back of a strong US jobs report and following the French election results. The Nikkei finished up 2.3%.

Japanese financial markets had been closed from Wednesday to Friday for national holidays.

Hong Kong won 0.4% and Sydney put on 0.6% by the close.

Seoul surged 2.3% to a fresh record high, the day before a presidential election to find a successor to the impeached Park Geun-Hye.

However, Shanghai closed down 0.8%, with traders unimpressed by data showing China's exports and imports rose less than expected last month and slowed from March.

The market has also been hit by concerns about government moves to crack down on leveraged investing that was fuelling instability.


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