Global equity markets, euro rally after French election

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global equity markets rallied on Monday to send a gauge of world stock indexes to a record high, while the euro briefly jumped to a five-month peak against the U.S. dollar as the first round of an election in France went to the market's preferred candidate.

Centrist Emmanuel Macron took a big step towards the French presidency on Sunday by winning the first round of voting and qualifying for a May 7 runoff alongside far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The victory for the pro-European Union centrist Macron sent MSCI's gauge of stock indexes across the globe to a record high of 453.38.

The blue chip euro zone STOXX 50 index surged 4 percent, its best day in nearly two years, while France's CAC40 jumped 4.1 percent, its biggest daily percentage gain in almost five years.

Investors were concerned a victory for Le Pen could put France on the path taken by Britain to leave the European Union.

"The biggest thing was you got confirmation that polling can actually be somewhat accurate, so you can actually make a prediction on probabilities of events and you can allocate assets and you don't get this big surprise," said Thomas Hainlin, global investment strategist at Ascent Private Capital Management in Minneapolis.

"So you just get this big relief rally."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 220.7 points, or 1.07 percent, to 20,768.46, the S&P 500 gained 24.65 points, or 1.05 percent, to 2,373.34 and the Nasdaq Composite added 69.73 points, or 1.18 percent, to 5,980.25.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 2.20 percent, its best day in 10 months, and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 1.49 percent.

The euro pared earlier gains, but was still up more than 1 percent against the dollar and nearly 2 percent higher against the yen.

There was also an unwinding of safe-haven trades.

Shorter-term German bonds saw their biggest sell-off since the end of 2015 as investors piled back into French as well as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek debt.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 10/32 in price to yield 2.2695 percent, from 2.236 percent late on Friday.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.65 percent versus the greenback to 109.79 per dollar. Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, the VIX volatility index, plunged the most since November.

Spot gold dropped 0.7 percent to $1,275.56 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 0.88 percent to $1,277.70 an ounce.

Meanwhile, investors are gearing up for the busiest week for corporate results in at least a decade on Wall Street, with more than 190 S&P 500 companies, including heavyweights Alphabet and Microsoft, due to report.

Asia also saw a risk rally. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.61 percent higher, while Japan's Nikkei rose 1.37 percent.

Oil prices continued to decline after last week's selloff, on lack of confirmation that OPEC will extend output cuts till the end of 2017 and as Russia indicated it can lift output if the deal on curbs lapses.

U.S. crude fell 0.75 percent to $49.25 per barrel and Brent was last at $51.64, down 0.62 percent on the day.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)