After a nail-biting campaign, the first-round of voting in the French Presidential election took place over the weekend.  The centrist Emmanuel Macron and euro-sceptic Marine Le Pen winning the most votes.
 
The French people will now be choosing between two radically different visions for the country in the second round of voting on the 7^th of May.
 
If Macron wins, he will be the first independent President of the Republic in France. This would delight France’s EU partners and reassure investors. This is the most likely outcome, but anything is possible.
 
The world economy looks like it should expand at a healthy pace over the next two years if the latest forecasts from the International Monetary Fund are anything to go by.
 
There has also been a bunch of data released recently on global growth and world trade that paints a positive picture as well.
 
Despite these positive headlines, investors are losing faith in Trump and the prospect for world growth – the two pillars that have supported the equity market rally.
 
With regards to Trump, investors are deterred by the President’s inability to push through tax reforms, deregulation and infrastructure investment.
 
China pessimism is also hovering like a cloud of doom over global growth as investors are anxious that the world's second-largest economy may have peaked. The main concern is driven by Beijing's efforts to rein in a credit bubble that could start to wear away at growth.
 
However, it needs to be emphasised that a peak in Chinese growth is unlikely to lead to a meltdown. This is especially the case because it is a politically important year for China, with the Chinese President set to preside over a change to the Communist Party's key personnel at the five-year congress.
 
Further, investors need to remember that there is a lot of incorrect reporting of China’s peak and that it will continue to reach new heights – just at a lower rate of growth.
If there are signs of fragility in the Chinese economy after June, we would expect the government to relax credit policies to kick start the economy again.
 
Concern about China is one of the main reasons for the recent decline in key commodity prices, as China has been a key source of demand.
 
Oil is being hit further by a lack of market confidence in OPEC’s supply cuts ability to overpower the resurgent in the US shale oil supply.