Daily Market News 4 July 2011

Friday’s Market Movers

The only piece of data from the UK was in the form of the UK manufacturing PMI where we saw a lower figure against market expectations and the month prior. This saw sterling fall both against the US dollar and the euro, these poor figures are going a long way to show that manufacturing activity grew at its slowest pace in nearly two years backing up expectations UK rates will remain at record levels for the foreseeable future.

The only piece of data from the UK was in the form of the UK manufacturing PMI where we saw a lower figure against market expectations and the month prior. This saw sterling fall both against the US dollar and the euro, these poor figures are going a long way to show that manufacturing activity grew at its slowest pace in nearly two years backing up expectations UK rates will remain at record levels for the foreseeable future.

Germany followed the UK in terms of their PMI with lower figure both MoM and YoY, however given the recent strength in the euro over the last few days with the Greece situation these bad figures didn’t really effect the euro too much. Yet being that Germany is the strongest of all the EU nations a lower figure is probably going to show that if Germany manufacturing is slowing down so could the rest of other euro zone countries.

European PMI manufacturing data from the euro zone on Friday showed an all over unchanged figure against market consensus however a lower number on the month prior. Which is probably showing that manufacturing within the euro zone itself is also slowing down in spite of the fact that interest rates could possibly being hiked as early as this week?

There were three pieces of data released from the United States on Friday with construction spending and Consumer sentiment coming in lower both against market expectations and the month prior. This could possibly give the notion that consumer sentiment like construction spending is suffering a slump in recent weeks given the slowdown in confidence in the US economy. On the other hand the ISM manufacturing sector did show an ever so slight increase and possibly showed that unlike the other two pieces of negative data the US manufacturing sector is possibly slightly ahead of other sectors in the US. The greenback did weaken as low as 1.6060 against the British pound after these figures were released.

The only piece of data from the UK today is in the form PMI construction where were only looking for an ever so slightly lower number of 53.6 from 54 the month prior.

The only pieces of data from the euro zone today are in the form of the European Sentix investor confidence and European PPI. The Sentix investor confidence is a monthly survey which shows the market opinion about the current economic situation and expectations over the coming months. Following on from the Senitx investor confidence is European PPI which is also looking for a lower number, however given that most of the euro gains over the last few days are coming from Greece’s debt issues fundamental data looks to be overshadowed at the moment.