France's CAC index spiked to a nine-year high on Monday while Germany's DAX broke through its all-time ceiling after centrist Emmanuel Macron pulled in the highest number of votes among candidates in the first round of the French presidential elections.
The euro traded at a five-month high overnight on Sunday as exit poll results filtered in. Though the European currency was to extend gains on Monday as it notched its best daily high against the dollar in 10 months with Macron's first round win confirmed. The single currency rose 1.2 percent and was trading at $1.0858 by the European close. 1-month implied volatility in the currency also sank by over a third at the start of the trading week.
Equity markets in Asia tracked higher on Monday with Japan's Nikkei 225 index ending the session up by 1.4 percent and both Australia's ASX 200 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng indexes in positive territory. Bucking the positive trend, China's Shanghai composite closed off by around 1.4 percent, thought to be affected by fears over domestic regulators further toughening their stance towards speculative traders.
Also trading lower was safe haven spot gold, around 0.8 percent lower by 4.30 p.m London time at $1,274 per troy ounce. The precious metal is often used as a hedge in times of political uncertainty though Macron's first round election victory had sparked an unwinding in safe haven trades.