Global stocks, euro fall as traders cash in French election bets

By Rodrigo Campos

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks dipped and the euro fell on Monday from highs touched after pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron's emphatic and expected victory in France's presidential election as investors cashed in recent gains.

European equities dipped, with French shares underperforming the wider market after having hit their highest in more than 9 years on Friday.

The euro fell the most against the dollar since late March, having risen in overnight trade to just above $1.10 when opinion polls signaled the scale of Macron's victory over anti-euro nationalist Marine Le Pen.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 touched a record high before turning negative in late morning trading.

"The (French election) results came in as expected and the market had already factored that in," said Andre Bakhos, managing director at Janlyn Capital in Bernardsville, New Jersey.

World stocks, as measured by MSCI's 46-country world index hit a record high and the main measure of Asia-Pacific shares excluding Japan rose 0.8 percent.

Shares resumed trading in Tokyo after a three-day market holiday. The Nikkei closed up 2.3 percent at a 17-month high.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 15.1 points, or 0.07 percent, to 20,991.84, the S&P 500 lost 2.98 points, or 0.12 percent, to 2,396.31 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 12.48 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,088.28.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.13 percent while France's CAC 40 index fell 0.9 percent.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.56 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.77 percent higher.

In currency markets, the dollar index rose 0.45 percent, with the euro down 0.64 percent to $1.0925. The euro earlier touched a six-month high of $1.1024.

The Japanese yen weakened 0.11 percent versus the greenback at 112.86 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.2938, down 0.32 percent on the day.

"The euro couldn't sustain the rally as it took to consolidating a 3 percent spike since France's presidential vote started two weeks earlier," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

"Nevertheless, the euro appears to have emerged from the French vote with a relatively bullish bias as dissipating political risk should intensify the spotlight on the (European Union) bloc's improving economic prospects."

Oil prices, which hit almost six-month lows last week on worries about a global glut of crude, slid further even as OPEC hinted there could be an extension to the current production cuts, which expire in June.

U.S. crude fell 0.61 percent to $45.94 per barrel and Brent was last at $48.70, down 0.81 percent on the day.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes were last down 7/32 in price to yield 2.3777 percent, from 2.352 percent late on Friday.

Spot gold was virtually flat at $1,227.87 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.08 percent to $1,227.90 an ounce.

Copper lost 1.88 percent to $5,480 a tonne as Chinese trade data showed April imports of the metal dived 30 percent from March.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; Additional reporting by Yashaswini Swamynathan in Bengaluru, Christopher Johnson and Karolin Schaps in London and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish)