The currency and commodity markets are under close watch following Sunday's French presidential election.
"Everybody was expecting a pretty bullish move in the euro following the election; well, it seems we have a little bit of resistance in play here," TradingAnalysis.com founder Todd Gordon said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
French centrist Emmanuel Macron's victory over far-right rival Marine Le Pen was considered a positive for the broader markets. Immediately after the
Le Pen had promised to pull France out of Europe's common currency. With Le Pen's loss, many traders expected the euro would continue to rally; but Macron's election appears to have been a "sell the news" event for traders.
The key theme Gordon observed on Monday was
Examining a chart of the FXE, the exchange-traded fund that tracks the euro, Gordon pointed to a pattern he called "three drives to a top." The fund rallied then fell beneath resistance, repeated that move, and was then finding resistance once more into the fund's $106 level.
The UUP, which tracks the U.S. dollar, has been doing something similar, but in reverse. "It seems to me we're trying to carve some support into the 25 area," he said.
Confirming what he has observed in the currency market, Gordon said, commodities are struggling against a stronger dollar. Turning to a chart of the GLD, an ETF that tracks the price of gold, Gordon notes the GLD has broken uptrend support. The GLD was expected to hold support just below the $120 level, he said, and that failed.
"Now we can lean against that as resistance," he said. And the gold miners are even weaker, taking a look at the GDX. "This guy's clearly broken uptrend support right around the $23 region, so miners are looking weak," he said.
Copper fell in Monday trading, too.
"We're seeing, following the French election, this euro rally running out of steam and giving some support to the dollar. That story is being corroborated by the commodity ETFs," he said.
