risk-off tone on French elections was the theme overnight - ANZ

Analysts at ANZ explained that markets were trading in a risk-off tone through the London session as concerns over the French election continued to build. 

Key Quotes:

"However, an announcement that Francois Bayrou will not stand in the French election but rather join forces with Macron caused a pop in risk sentiment. EUR had dipped below 1.05 before popping to 1.0540 on the French news."

"OATS bull flattened with the front-end down about 4bps and the long-end down 8bps. US treasuries erased early gains with 10 year yields climbing from a low of 2.39% to a high of 2.44%, before edging down to 2.42% after the release of the Fed minutes."

"Gold fell from a high of USD1241 to USD1233, before recovering post the Fed minutes to USD1238/oz. Elsewhere, solid US data had little impact on markets."