020 7898 0500It was mixed fortunes for the service sector in the Eurozone. The French and Italian services sectors missed forecasts, whilst the Spanish and German data exceeded expectations. Markets, however, generally focus more on the composite figure than the individual nations’ figures. The composite figure posted a reading of 56.4 (anything above 50 indicates growth). This is at a six-year high.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of discussion surrounding the second live presidential debate in France on Tuesday. For the first time, all 11 candidates in the French presidential election went head-to-head in a televised debate. According to Bloomberg, two snap polls rated far-right Le Pen’s performance as only the fourth best on the night.
However, yesterday Opinionway polls suggested that Le Pen was closing the gap.
Once again we saw European Central Bank members discussing monetary policy yesterday, which is a further sign that we are seeing a normalisation in the European economy. Two ECB members talked about the timing of QE tapering. One of them said it would start soon and the other one said in summer.
In terms of data, markets will focus on German factory orders today.
