World equity markets experienced a decline as a result of declines in technology stocks in Europe at 2% and the United States (US) at 2.6%.
The MSCI gauge of worldwide stocks closed 1.33% lower and the European pan STOXX 600 index fell 0.59% as regional bourses declined, except for France’s CAC 40 which rose 0.12%.
Uncertainty enveloped French blue-chip stocks flanked by the prospect of a final round vote between Macron-Le Pen.
So far, French assets are seen as less attractive due to negative market sentiment with Le-Pen’s protectionist agenda regarding tax cuts and nationalization.
Julius Bear’s head of equity strategy, Mathieu Racheter, did not expect the French equity market to rise before the 2nd round instead he expected a lot of volatility and tied trades in the range.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial average index fell 1.19%, the S&P 500 lost 1.69%and the Nasdaq Composite was down 2.18%.
The overnight performance of Asian markets saw the MSCI Asia Pacific broad index of stocks outside Japan fall 1.6% and the Nikkei 225 Tokyo fall 0.61%.
Meanwhile, US Treasury yields soared to the highest level since 2019 ahead of inflation data that will see the Federal Reserve (Fed) tighten policy.
The benchmark 10 -year Treasury yield rose 7 basis points at 2.793%.
According to SLC Management’s managing director of investment strategy and asset allocation, Dec Mullarkey, the Fed is expected to move more aggressively by raising 50 basis points at each of the next 3 policy meetings.
Clearly, they do not want to be an issue in the middle term, which is the November election that will see Republicans oppose President Joe Biden -led Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
In addition, economists forecast that the US consumer price index (CPI) on Tuesday will register an increase of 8.4% year -on -year in March while they also do not rule out the probability of an economic recession next year by 40%.
Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin fell 5.66% to US $ 39,748.60.
