Vive le rally: Global markets soar after French election

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks joined a worldwide rally Monday after the first round of France's presidential election raised expectations that the European Union will hold together.

Coming into Sunday's presidential election in France, several candidates railed against the European Union, one of the world's dominant trading partners.

A victory for one of those candidates would have followed the path set by last year's vote in the United Kingdom to exit the European Union and the U.S. election of President Donald Trump as a kick in the face to the globalist, free-trade worldview.

Many investors see the Vix index as a measure of the market's anxiety level because it shows how expensive prices are to buy protection against upcoming drops in stocks.

Any rise in bond yields recently has fed into immediate gains for bank stocks, and Monday fit the pattern again.

Financial stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 2.2 percent, by far the biggest gain among the 11 sectors that make up the index.

Hasbro jumped $6.16, or 6.4 percent, to $102.19 after reporting stronger quarterly revenue and profits than analysts had forecast.

Natural gas fell 2 cents to $3.08 per 1,000 cubic feet, silver was virtually flat at $17.86 per ounce and copper added 1.5 cents to settle at $2.55 per pound.

Benchmarks in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell by more than 1 percent in their worst losses in four months after regulators warned over the weekend of risks in the financial industry.

The Chinese Insurance Regulatory Commission, in a notice carried by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, ordered insurers to improve risk controls amid a crackdown on misuse of capital.