London — World stocks hit record highs on Tuesday, with investors’ relief at centrist Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the first round of the French presidential election supported by speculation about US tax reform. Safe-haven assets, such as gold and the Japanese yen, retreated as opinion polls suggested Macron would easily beat far-right, anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen in a May 7 run-off. The yield gap between French and German short-term government bonds, a closely watched measure of political risk in the eurozone, tightened further after hitting a three-month low on Monday. "This [the second round] is going to be a non-event for the market," said Commerzbank currency strategist Thu Lan Nguyen in Frankfurt. "Markets have pretty much priced out the risk of a Le Pen victory, and rightly so, because the first round of the elections has shown that the polls in France were correct ... and this increases the confidence in the polls for the second round ... It’s highly likely that [Macron...
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