– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on April 19, Wednesday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
European markets closed lower on Tuesday as investors reacted to U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's surprise announcement to call a snap general election on June 8.
Turnover throughout the UK stood at £18.3bn at 4:30pm, according to the London Stock Exchange's figures. This was the third-biggest turnover since 1997.
Sterling rebounded sharply against the dollar on Tuesday after Britain's Prime Minister said she wanted to hold a general election.
Having fallen in early trading, the U.K. currency surged more than 1.5 percent to its highest level in five months.
The prime minister said in a surprise statement on Tuesday morning that her decision had been made "recently and reluctantly", but argued that the U.K. has a "one-off opportunity" to form a unified government while the EU decides its negotiating position on Brexit.
[ADRIANO BOSONI, Stratfor Senior Europe Analyst] "She probably thought that it was a good idea to get the election out of the way asap to win a large majority in parliments, so she can make difficult controversial decisions on Brexit without having to worry too much about an election. now the election will be held in 2022 instead of 2020, which gives her plenty of time to negotiate difficult issues with the EU, and she hopes to win the election with her own agenda trying to have a more united party and if possible, try to minimize the hardliners within her own party, which caused trouble in the past 9 months."
A recent YouGov poll however suggests that the governing Conservative party currently maintains the lead, garnering 44 percent of public support, while the Labour party holds 23 percent and the Liberal Democrats trail behind with 12 percent.
There's very few clues on May's "own agenda", if there's one. We'll have to wait until June 8 for furthur details.
Meanwhile, for the French stock market, the CAC 40 is trading significantly lower, down by 1.6%, as European markets begin to have concerns amid election uncertainty in France, with the first-round vote on April 23rd.
The latest poll shows that Macron retain his slim lead with 23% of the vote, followed by Le Pen with 22% and Melenchon with 19.5%.
CNBC's Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.