020 7898 0500It is fair to say that 2018 hasn’t been all that great for economic data from the eurozone so far, as it appears economic growth forecasts made at the start of the year were a little on the optimistic side. Couple that with concerns over the effects of Trump’s trade tariffs and we begin to appreciate how important it was that we received some positive PMI data yesterday.
And they didn’t disappoint, as all four releases came in better than expected. Composite and services PMI from Germany had been expected to come in at 54.2 and 53.9 respectively, but the actual figures were 54.8 and 54.5. In the eurozone, composite and services had been forecast to come in at 54.8 and 55 respectively, but the readings were 54.9 and 55.2. The euro still found itself weakening a little against sterling and the dollar, not least because such data releases typically have very little effect on the currency markets, but there is every reason to think there will be increased optimism.
Today we will have retail PMI for June, which was 51.7 in May and we will also see construction PMI from Germany. It will be interesting to see what the figure comes in at, especially in light of the UK’s release earlier this week. Finally, we will see German factory orders in May which are expected to have increased to 1.1% from -2.5% the month before.
