Wall Street surges, Nasdaq hits record on French vote result

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The Nasdaq hit a record high on Monday, with other indexes also rallying, as investors breathed a sigh of relief after Centrist candidate and market favorite Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French election.

Polls showed pro-EU Macron is expected to beat right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote on May 7, quelling some fears of a breakup of the Eurozone after Britain's shock exit vote last year.

"The markets are in a strong rebound as the expectations of the first round of the French elections results were pleasing," Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial wrote in a note.

The rally on Wall Street was broad-based, with all of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors trading higher, led by a two per cent surge in the financial index as big US banks rose.

The three major indexes notched gains of more than one per cent.

At 9:34 am ET (1334 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 209.6 points, or 1.02 per cent, at 20,757.36, the S&P 500 was up 25.3 points, or 1.1 per cent, at 2,373.99 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 67.49 points, or 1.14 per cent, at 5,978.02.

US investors are also gearing up for the busiest earnings week in at least a decade, with over 190 S&P 500 members, including heavyweights Alphabet and Microsoft due to report results.

Overall profit for S&P 500 companies is estimated to have risen 11.2 per cent in the first quarter, compared with the 10.1 per cent forecast at the start of the earnings season, according to Thomson Reuters.

Prices of safe-haven gold dropped nearly 1 percent, while the CBOE Volatility index tumbled nearly 19 per cent.

Hasbro surged 6.3 per cent after the toymaker reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit.

Medical device maker C R Bard jumped more than 19 per cent to $302 after US medical equipment supplier Becton Dickinson said it would buy Bard for $24 billion.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 2,298 to 367. On the Nasdaq, 2,054 issues rose and 359 fell.

The S&P 500 index showed 62 new 52-week highs and no new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 123 new highs and six new lows.