German Factory Orders Deliver Strong EUR Support

It was a relatively busy morning on the Eurozone economic calendar this morning. Key stats included German factory orders and Eurozone retail sales figures for December. It was a mixed set of numbers, with German factory orders delivering further EUR support.

German Factory Orders

In December, German factory orders increased by 2.8% versus a forecasted 0.5% rise. Factory orders had jumped by 3.6% in November.

According to Destatis,

• Domestic orders surged by 11.7%, month-on-month, while foreign orders fell by 3.0%.
• New orders from the euro area declined by 4.2%, while new orders from other countries fell by 2.3%.
• Producers of intermediate goods reported a 4.1% increase in new orders, with capital goods producers seeing a 1.8% rise.
• Consumer goods orders led the way, however, jumping by 5.3%.
• Compared with December 2020, orders were 5.5% higher.

Eurozone Retail Sales

In December, retail sales slid by 3.0% in the Eurozone reversing a 1.0% increase from November. Economists had forecast a more modest 0.5% decline.

According to Eurostat,

• Non-food product sales slumped by 5.2%, while food, drinks, & tobacco sales slipped by 0.3%.
• Automotive fuel sales rose by a modest 0.1%.
• Member states with the largest falls in retail trade volume were the Netherlands (-9.2%), Spain (-5.7%), and Germany (-5.5%).
• By contrast, Latvia (+7.2%) and Slovenia (+2.1%) recorded the largest increases in retail sales in December.

Market Impact

Ahead of today’s stats, the EUR had fallen to a pre-stat and current day low $1.14321 rising to a pre-stat high $1.14719.

In response to today’s prelim inflation figures, the EUR rose to a post-stat and current day high $1.14770.

At the time of writing, the EUR was up by 0.32% to $1.14761.

Next Up

U.S nonfarm payrolls for January.