020 7898 0500Plenty of economic data releases from Germany and the eurozone have come in below expectations recently, as fears of a trade war appear to have weighed heavily on business confidence (and other things besides). Yesterday, every flash reading of the composite, services and manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices from Germany and eurozone missed forecast.
It’s nothing to be too concerned about, as all still showed impressive growth and, truth be told, none of them missed by much. However, German manufacturing PMI fell for the third straight month and the reading pointed to the slowest rate of expansion for eight months. Of course, these are all only preliminary estimates, so it remains to be seen what the actual figures are, but certainly something to keep tabs on in the coming weeks. The German Ifo business climate index also came in slightly below expectations at 114.7 which is the lowest reading since April 2017.
Today we have the European Council Summit and could shed further light on the kind of future UK-EU trade deal we can expect. If there are any developments – positive or negative – we could see some movements between sterling and the euro.
