This morning, European shares got off to another tepid session with the Cac and Dax down as the political chaos in Paris continued. The FTSE 100 started cold but warmed up as the morning went on and was up 0.1 per cent. Giving a boost to the FTSE, Shell shares rose after it provided a positive trading update, signalling a rebound in oil and gas trading in the third quarter that will boost earnings. More on that here

Elsewhere, Rentokil jumped on an upgrade from Bernstein and Imperial Brands rose after announcing a new £1.45bn share buyback. B&M European Value Retail tumbled 12 per cent after a sharp decline in Q2 sales leave profits down 28 per cent for the year.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 hit a record high for a second straight session following the election of Sane Takaichi as prime minister. 

Yesterday, Wall Street rose again with the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Russell 2,000 all hitting fresh record highs. AMD leapt on OpenAI looking at taking a 10 per cent stake in the chipmaker. OpenAI will deploy six gigawatts of AMD’s Instinct graphics processing units – AMD rose more than 20 per cent on Monday. Seems a bit like a pass-the-parcel of equity and investment dollars: what happens when it all breaks? Every company seems to have a stake in the next and is a customer of the other. Nvidia shares fell more than 1 per cent. Arthur Sants looks at the AI merry-go-round here

France is in the mire politically and fiscally. The problem is the parliamentary arithmetic doesn’t stack up and no government wants to fall on its sword to get the kind of reforms required to sort out the deficit. So, we end in a circular mess of failed governments and resigning prime ministers. President Emmanuel Macron has given the latest in this sorry line, Sebastien Lecornu, who resigned yesterday, two days to try sort something out. There’s pressure on French bonds and a widening in the Franco-German yield spread, it’s now the highest since January. All of which is putting pressure on the euro.

Gold, however, is relentless – up again to a fresh high overnight with spot prices at $3,977. People are now talking about FOMO…never thought you’d hear that with gold. Meanwhile Bitcoin was near a record high a day before retail investors in the UK are able to access regulated crypto ETNs.

By Neil Wilson, investor strategist at Saxo UK