By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The euro fell on Monday after elections in Germany showed support for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives fell to its lowest since 1949, while Brent oil futures rose to a more than 2-year high after major producers said the global market was on track to rebalance.
Stocks on Wall Street fell after North Korea accused the United States of having declared war, While U.S. government bond yields fell as investors sought safer assets.
The emergence of the pro-regulation Greens as power-brokers in any government coalition in Germany weighed on financial markets.
"Markets don't like uncertainty and the German election results have injected a healthy dose of (that)," said Richard Falkenhall, a strategist at SEB AB in Stockholm.
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The U.S. dollar also benefited from a New Zealand election which left the ruling National Party short of the necessary votes to rule without forming a coalition. The greenback gained 0.8 percent to the kiwi.
The dollar index rose 0.49 percent, with the euro down 0.85 percent to $1.1851.
The Japanese yen strengthened 0.30 percent versus the greenback at 111.64 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.3454, down 0.27 percent on the day.
The stronger dollar weighed on emerging market stocks, which lost 1.40 percent, the most in over four months. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 1.25 percent lower, while Japan's Nikkei rose 0.50 percent.
On Wall Street, a selloff in tech drove major indexes lower and equities fell further after the North Korean Foreign Minister said U.S. President Donald Trump's tweets over the weekend were tantamount to a declaration of war.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 80.68 points, or 0.36 percent, to 22,268.91, the S&P 500 lost 9.84 points, or 0.39 percent, to 2,492.38 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 66.38 points, or 1.03 percent, to 6,360.55.
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index rose 0.26 percent and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.52 percent.
CRUDE RALLIES
Brent crude touched its highest since July 2015 after major producers said the global market was on track to rebalance and Turkey said it could cut off a pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to the global market, putting more pressure on the Kurdish autonomous region over its independence referendum.
"If this boycott call proves successful, a good 500,000 fewer barrels of crude oil per day would reach the market," Commerzbank said in a note.
U.S. crude rose 1.95 percent to $51.65 per barrel and Brent was last at $57.71, up 2.29 percent on the day.
Safe-haven demand drove U.S. Treasury yields to session lows after North Korean foreign minister's remarks at the United Nations. He said Pyongyang reserves the right to take countermeasures.
Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 11/32 in price to yield 2.2233 percent, from 2.262 percent late on Friday.
The 30-year bond last rose 22/32 in price to yield 2.7623 percent, from 2.796 percent late on Friday.
Spot gold added 0.6 percent to $1,304.96 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.82 percent to $1,308.20 an ounce.
Copper lost 0.08 percent to $6,452.00 a tonne.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, Dion Rabouin, Jessica Resnick-Ault, Richard Leong; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
