The euro soared against the U.S. dollar while the yen plunged on Monday as relief took hold of the forex market as Emmanuel Macron's narrowly edged Marine Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential elections. Investors bought the euro and riskier assets as polls show Macron will comfortably beat Le Pen in the second round.
EUR/USD was more than 1.25 percent higher at the close around 1.0860, not far from the 5-1/2-month high of 1.0935 it touched after the initial indications from the Sunday vote gave victory to Macron, as predicted by weeks of polling.
Sunday's election result diminished the prospect of an anti-establishment shock on the scale of Britain's vote last June to quit the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.
As markets globally were relieved by the results of the French vote, traders abandoned the perceived security of the yen. EUR/JPY was last up almost 2.50 percent at 119.25 and USD/JPY up 0.75 percent at 109.75 after hitting a nearly two-week high of 110.62.
The results of the vote were soothing in part because fears of a potential Le Pen runoff with far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, both of whom distrust the European Union, did not play out.
