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EUR: German construction PMI dips

By Kiran Najran March 7th, 2018

The main release from the eurozone yesterday was the construction PMI from Germany. As the eurozone’s largest economy, the reading holds more weight than other countries. It fell from 59.8 in January to 52.7 in February which was quite a fall. While the latest figure is the smallest expansion in the construction sector since January 2017, it does signal more than three years of continued growth. Impressive. Retail PMI came in at 52.3 from 50.8 the month before.

Today we will see the third estimate of the eurozone’s GDP growth rate for 2017. This should give us a real indication of how Europe’s economy performed towards the end of last year and one suspects the reading will prove to be a positive, especially given the good year that the eurozone had in 2017.

Then on Thursday, we will see the European Central Bank’s interest rate decision as well as their press conference. It will be interesting to see whether they make any comments that signal future monetary policy – particularly their quantitative easing programme towards the end of this year and into next. We could see some euro movement if something particularly noteworthy is said.