NZ market flat on French vote

French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Picture / supplied.

New Zealand's sharemarket has opened with a muted reaction to the French election results on a day of light trading ahead of tomorrow's Anzac Day holiday.

Shares in the benchmark NZX/S&P50 were up just 0.1 per cent in early trading to 7204.77 points after French centrist politician Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen made it through the first round of the presidential election.

At the same time the New Zealand dollar slipped to 64.45 euro cents as at 8am in Wellington from 65.53 cents in New York on Friday. It rose to 70.35 US cents from 70.19 cents.

James Smalley, an investment adviser at Hamilton Hindin Greene, said the market reaction had been a little bit like "water off a duck's back."

Typically Mondays were quiet trading days and today was probably quieter than normal with tomorrow being a public holiday, he said.

"A lot of people may have decided to make it a three day week. I expect to see volume pretty light so that normally means the bigger investors might not be as prominent as normal."

He said local investors may wait and see how the bigger off-shore markets in Asia react this afternoon before deciding what they do.

Smalley said the election result had been one of the options well-flagged which meant it was not likely to shock global markets which did not like surprises.

"It's not like it has come out of the blue like the Trump scenario."

French voters will head to polls again on May 7 for the final run-off vote between the two candidates.

Smalley said if the far-right candidate Le Pen was voted in it could signal a new paradigm which could effect trade and potentially impact markets but that was not expected at this stage.

"We are certainly not seeing any real impact on prices or investor sentiment at this stage."

HiFX traders said in a note that the French voters had delivered the result the markets were hoping for.

"The result has seen the EUR gap 2 per cent higher from Friday's close as many now believe that supporters for Republican candidate and third place contender, Francois Fillon, will support Macron.

"Global events will continue to drive the kiwi dollar this week, with little local economic news scheduled."

Among events likely to be the focus of traders, US President Donald Trump has reportedly said the White House will unveil a "massive tax cut" but didn't give more details.

The kiwi was trading at 92.85 Australian cents from 93.20 cents on Friday and traded at 54.72 British pence from 54.87 pence. It rose to 77.71 yen from 76.69 yen. The trade-weighted index was at 76.48 from 76.34 last week.

-additional reporting BusinessDesk.