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Full Week Ahead Preview: Here’s “What To Watch” After France Votes

By Kurt Osterberg · On April 23, 2017

Well, it’s Sunday which means French voters are going to the polls to decide whether they want to do their part to help facilitate the end of Western Democracy as we know it. Here’s one voter who knows what she wants in that regard:

Thanks Marine. Now if only you could convince the skeptics among us that this isn’t all a show and that you aren’t simply going to revert to being your father if elected.

Well as we noted on Saturday, the ECB is preparing for the worst (although they don’t expect it) and the SNB has indicated its willingness to step into FX markets if some “adverse” outcome triggers EUR/CHF chaos.

So far:

Macron 24% and Le Pen 22% so far, with 4 hours to go, according to Belgian TV exit polls in France. https://t.co/wim8RxGvnT

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) April 23, 2017

Although the French election isn’t the only possible market moving event for the trading week that will be, “it’s hard to see it as a non-event in the short- or medium-term,” Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow writes in his week ahead preview excerpted below.

Via Bloomberg

It was the kind of week where China released a set of really good numbers, including retail sales, industrial production and GDP and the Shanghai Composite sold off over 2%. Perhaps understandable in a world where the major economic debate currently trending is whether “hard” or “soft” data is what we should be paying attention to.

To add insult to injury, as Goldman Sachs shows, sentiment improvement and whether you voted for Donald Trump are highly correlated

The U.K. unexpectedly decided to call a snap election and the pound soared. Lots of currency forecasters rushed to pull their conviction bearish calls. Showing once again the risks of thinking it’s possible to call the path of a financial asset two years in advance

Meanwhile, back in the real world, U.K. retail sales were a bad miss and Tuesday’s spike into the sell zone now looking frustratingly far away

Despite some weak recent data out of the U.S., Fed Vice Chairman Fischer stood by his upbeat view of the economy. Indications are the Committee may well be planning to look through the first quarter soft- patch which seems to become a recurring pattern. Futures pricing for a June hike tanked on Tuesday and have been rising ever since. U.S. first quarter GDP due on Friday may set the tone

Up ahead, we get the first round of the French presidential election, ECB and BOJ meetings and find out if the U.S. can avoid a government shut-down by passing its spending bill.