Investing.com – Wall Street futures pointed to a higher open on Monday as the result of the first round of French presidential elections sparked a risk-on relief rally in global equities that looked to send the Dow around 200 points higher.
The blue-chip Dow futures jumped 205 points, or 1.00%, at 7:01AM ET (11:01GMT), the S&P 500 futures gained 27 points, or 1.14%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 57 points, or 1.04%.
Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential election with 23.75% of the vote, advancing to the second and final vote with far-right Marine Le Pen who took 21.53% which will take place on May 7.
Euro-friendly Macron is widely tipped to win the final vote, with opinion polls showing him comfortably beating Le Pen by around 20 percentage points, reducing the risk of an anti-establishment shock that would kick off the far-right candidate’s agenda to leave the euro.
The outcome eased fears over the future of the euro zone, cheering investors who piled into risk assets.
France’s CAC 40 rose around 4.5%, while Germany’s DAX hit all-time highs, transmitting the positive sentiment to Wall Street as well.
As investors moved money into risk assets, safe havens suffered with gold down more than 1% and the yen falling a similar amount against the dollar.
As market participants sold off U.S. Treasuries, the U.S. 10-Year, which moves inversely to prices, jumped 2.94% to 2.302% at 7:02AM ET (11:02GMT).
Also supporting sentiment in American stocks, U.S. President Donald Trump promised Saturday that he would announce a “big tax reform and tax reduction” on Wednesday.
With only minor economic reports, such as the Chicago Fed national activity index for March of the Dallas Fed manufacturing business index for April, on Monday’s agenda while waiting for the advanced reading of gross domestic product at the end of the week, market players will focus their attention on earnings.
Halliburton (NYSE:HAL), Hasbro (NASDAQ:HAS) and Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) were among companies to report before the open, while the likes of Alcoa (NYSE:AA), Express Scripts (NASDAQ:ESRX) or Whirlpool (NYSE:WHR) will release their numbers after the close.
As of last week, 95 S&P firms had reported with 77% beating on profits with growth of 13.6%, according to The Earnings Scout.
However, these experts warned that only 30% of those companies had second quarter estimates raised after reporting.
Meanwhile, oil prices recovered somewhat on Monday, coming off of steep weekly losses of nearly 7%.
Limiting upside, investors remained concerned amid signs of further gains in U.S. crude output.
U.S. drillers last week added rigs for the 14th week in a row, data from energy services company Baker Hughes showed on Friday, extending a 10-month drilling recovery.
U.S. crude futures gained 0.87% to $50.05 by 7:13AM ET (11:13GMT), while Brent oil rose 0.86% to $52.89.