LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Stocks were trading flat to mixed in the early going following the French President's decision at the weekend to call snap parliamentary elections at the end of June.
What many commentators described as a risky gamble by Emmanuel Macron underlined the scope for increased political uncertainty on either side of the Atlantic - not just in France.

As of 1610 BST, the Dow Jones Industrials was off by 0.22% or 86.94 points to 38,711.34 and the S&P 500 by 0.03% or 1.54 points to 5,345.70.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 on the other hand was up by 0.15% or 25.45 points to 17,159.90.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were up by 1.47% to $76.63 on the NYMEX, alongside a three basis point move higher on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note to 4.468%.

No major economic reports were due out, although market participants were expectant ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy announcement scheduled for two days later.

There was special interest in just how far, or not, policymakers would walk back their previous expectations for three interest rate cuts for over the remainder of 2024.

They were also waiting on the May CPI report, which was expected to show a month-on-month advance of just 0.1%, which would be the smallest increase year-to-date.

On the corporate side of things, investors were waiting for Apple's worldwide developers' conference to start later in the day.

In particular, Apple boss Tim Cook's keynote speech on Monday was likely to include announcements related to artificial intelligence, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

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