Monday Madness – Le Pen Victory Leads To All-Time Highs

Marine Le Pen is still in the running.

That was supposed to be a disaster but, in fact, she is polling so far behind her remaining opponent, Emmanuel Macron, that Europe has decided not to worry about the Far Right taking over France and the Euro and the European markets are staging a massive rally this morning.

As of 5am (I have to be in NYC today for the Nasdaq open), the French markets are up 4.3% with Italy right behind at 3.8%, Spain 3.4%, Germany 2.75% and even the UK, who already elected to leave the madness far behind, are up 1.8%:

The Euro has blasted 1.5% higher, sending the Dollar down 1%, back to 98.90 (where we’re long /DX as that’s silly) and the US Futures are up 1% so far, but that’s woefully behind the reaction the European equities are showing. Fortunately, on Thursday, in our Live Member Chat Room, we hedged the upside by going long Japan’s Nikkei, saying:

Nikkei (/NKD) is now the laggard to the upside and also benefits from a rising Dollar so 18,600 is a good long line for them. 

As you can see, the Nikkei popped 400 points for us over the weekend, yielding gains of $2,000 per contract and outperforming the Dow, which also pays $5 per point, by 100%. Fortunately, we took the short money and ran mid-day Friday and our portfolio adjustments left us less bearish than we had been (and we went long on Oil (/CL $50), Silver (/SI $17.80) and Coffee (/KC $133), so we’ll see how they perform in this rally as well.

Not that anyone cares about actual news but Israel bombed a weapons depot in Southern Syria in retaliation for a mortar attack from Syria upon the Golan Heights on Friday. That’s the kind of news that used to send the markets lower but I guess war in the Middle East is the least of our worries when Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un both have their fingers on nuclear buttons…

And, of course, the US Government will shut down from lack of funding on Friday and Trump still refuses to even discuss a budget that doesn’t include a big, giant wall to keep the Mexicans from raping and murdering us which, I suppose, is what he was elected to do and it’s Day 93 so next Monday will officially be Day 100 and I don’t think Trump wants the Wall to be another check in the loss column as the reviews begin to pour in.