Euro Turbulence Against US Dollar

The euro has fallen to buying $1.095 this morning GMT, in what has been a chaotic past 24 hours between the euro and the dollar.

Against the UK pound the euro is now buying £0.774, having fallen from £0.777 just before noon GMT yesterday.

In their daily brief LMAX exchange said that the Euro has done a good job rallying out from recent lows, with the single currency benefiting from Friday’s

softer hourly earnings component in the US employment report.

While the headline non farm payroll figures came in well above forecast,

the fact that hourly earnings dropped off, coming in much softer, was enough of a reason for the market to expect the Fed would be holding off on additional rate hikes

LMAX also said that the focus now shifts to this Thursday’s ECB meeting, where the central bank is expected to expand its easing program. This should keep the Euro well offered into additional rallies.

The UK pound has also fallen against the greenback, and is now buying £1.41, having fallen from purchasing £1.422 at the beginning of today.

EU PMI Shows Slowing Growth

Figures from financial information services company Markit has shown that there has been slowing growth across many economic sectors.

Service-related firms underperformed in particular, with only real estate and healthcare services seeing faster expansions in activity.

Throughout 2015 beverages was the best performer on the PMI, and has returned to the head of the table in Markit’s latest survey.

Construction materials slipped one place down to second in the survey, but it still saw a relatively sharp increase in output.

Forestry and paper products was third on the back of the second-quickest rise in production since May 2014.

Several service providers suffered bleak data, healthcare, consumer services and financials were among the weakest of the broad sectors monitored.

The slowdown that was recorded in financials was particularly significant, as activity in the sector rose at the least marked rate for the past two and a half years.

During last year, the banks were the third fastest growing sector, but has tumbled down to eighteenth in Markit’s survey.

The fall in financials activity was the first to be recorded in the sector since September 2012.

Manufacturing Decreases in January

Official figures in Germany have revealed that manufacturing has decreased for January this year, by 0.1% when compared to December last year.

The decline in the sector eased when compared to the month on month figures for December 2015, when manufacturing decreased by 0.2% compared to November last year.

In January 2016, domestic orders decreased 1.6%, while foreign orders increased by 1.0% on the previous month.

As for the direction of trade in foreign transactions, new orders from the euro area were up 7.5% on the previous month, while new orders from other countries decreased 2.7%.

In January 2016 the manufacturers of intermediate goods fell by 4%, while the manufacturers of capital goods showed increases of 1.7% on the previous month.

For consumer goods, an increase in new orders of 3.9% was recorded.