German Factory Orders Deliver EUR Support Early in the Session

It was a quieter start to the day on the Eurozone economic calendar on Thursday. Key stats included German factory orders.

In March, factory orders rose by 3.0%, month-on-month, following a 1.2% increase in February. Economists had forecast a 1.7% rise.

According to Destatis,

• Domestic orders increased by 4.9% and foreign orders by 1.6% month-on-month.
• New orders from the euro area increased 0.7% and by 2.2% from other countries.
• Manufacturers of intermediate goods saw new orders increase by 2.8%.
• Consumer goods manufacturers saw new orders jump by 8.5%, with orders for capital goods up 2.5%.
• When compared with February 2020, which was the month before restrictions were imposed, turnover was 3.4% lower.
• Compared on the same month a year earlier, new orders were up 27.8%.

Market Impact

Ahead of the numbers the EUR had fallen to a pre-stat and current day low $1.19932.

In response to the numbers, the EUR slipped to a post-stat low $1.20051 before rising to a post-stat and current day high $1.20278.

At the time of writing, the EUR was up by 0.16% to $1.20228.

Next Up

Eurozone retail sales figures followed by the weekly jobless claim figures from the U.S. Prelim U.S unit labor cost and nonfarm productivity figures for the 1^st quarter are due out but will likely have limited impact on the broader markets.

From the ECB, the Economic Bulletin is also due out shortly…