Haidema Maritime Holdings said the tanker market remained highly volatile in Q2 as geopolitical tensions intensified in the Middle East and Europe.

With eight months to the French presidential vote, markets are showing stress: France’s borrowing premium over Germany has climbed to levels close to the highs seen during the 2012 European sovereign-debt crisis. Investors are focused on who will succeed pro-business centrist Macron and how they would tackle a >5% fiscal deficit, rising debt servicing costs and growth teetering near recession. Front-runners on the extremes — Marine Le Pen on the right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the left — propose sharply divergent fiscal programmes, including higher spending, lower retirement ages, partial debt forgiveness and even stopping France’s contributions to the EU. Gavekal Research CEO Louis-Vincent Gave says, absent a parliamentary majority, fiscal space or political capital, it is unclear how the government could staunch fiscal deterioration and the risk is that the bleed accelerates. The 15-year French government yield, viewed as less affected by short-term monetary policy, and its spread to the German same-tenor rate are near post-2012 peaks, signalling markets are pricing a structural deterioration in France’s long-term fiscal position relative to Germany.

Japan's finance minister KATAYAMA said at the G20 meeting that arbitrary export controls harm economic growth and must be abolished.