1. French election 1st round results

Results from the first round of the closely-watched French presidential election on Sunday showed centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen advancing to the second and final round on May 7.

Committed globalist Macron took about 23.8% of the vote, while Le Pen, who wants to take France out of the euro, took 21.5%, according to an official tally with 97.4% of ballots counted.

Macron is widely seen to win the final vote, with opinion polls showing him comfortably beating Le Pen by more than 20% points, reducing the risk of an anti-establishment shock in the final round.

2. Euro jumps to 5-month high

The euro spiked to 5-month peaks on Monday after results showed centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won the first round of the French presidential election.

Macron is leading the polls for the runoff vote, setting him on course to become France’s next president, meaning that the risk of Frexit and the potential breakup of the euro zone has waned.

The euro was up 1.3% at 1.0867 by midday in Europe after earlier rising as high as 1.0928, its strongest since November 10 (EUR/USD).

Against the yen, the euro jumped 2.3% to 119.70, after touching a one-month high of 120.70 (EUR/JPY).

The euro also made gains against the British pound, trading 1.3% higher at 0.8479 (EUR/GBP).

3. Global stocks in risk mode

U.S. stock market futures pointed to a sharply higher open on Monday morning, after French election results eased fears over the future of the euro zone, cheering investors.

The blue-chip Dow futures gained 194 points, or around 1%, to 20,697, the S&P 500 futures added 26 points, or 1.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures rose 59 points, or 1%.

In Europe, stocks rallied to multi-year highs in mid-morning trade, with Germany's DAX up around 2.7% to an all-time peak of 12,395.

France's CAC 40 jumped more than 4% to a nine-year high, setting it on track for its biggest one-day percentage increase since August 2015, with banks leading gains.

Earlier, in Asia, markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei closing up about 1.4%.

The Shanghai Composite in China bucked the trend, ending down almost 1.4% amid concern Beijing will step up measures to crack down on leveraged trading.

4. Safe-havens drop

Investors dumped safe-haven assets after a first-round win for centrist Emmanuel Macron averted fears of a euroskeptic-only final runoff in the French presidential election.

Gold lost $17.00, or around 1.3%, to $1,271.90 a troy ounce. The yellow metal fell by as much as 1.8% earlier to a session low of $1,266.00, the weakest since April 11.

The dollar was up around 1% at 110.15 against the Japanese yen, rising above the 110-level level for the first time in nearly two weeks and logging an earlier high of 110.52 (USD/JPY).