Morning Market Update – Euro Looks Positive

Asian Markets

The Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) meeting minutes for March released this morning and the meeting said “Now is the time to mull raising rates and reduce JGB purchases to the extent possible”. However, several members state that the long term rate increase is not advisable.

Japan services PMI released earlier in the day showed a weakened inflationary pressure in the service sector. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) set the Yuan rate at 6.5956 versus Friday’s fix of 6.8931.

China’s Caixin Manufacturing PMI for the month of April came in at 50.3 versus the expected value of 51.2.  The latest release indicated that the Chinese manufacturers are slowing down their production and the growth rate is reducing. The employment rate has also been declining rapidly.

Other Markets

Moving on for the day, the RBA is likely to meet today and the interest rates are expected to be at 1.5% with the ongoing issue. The yearly Australian Budget Release will be released for the day and we expect it to provide some direction for the Aussie.

Markit Manufacturing PMI for Spain is on the rise with 54.4 when compared to its previous release at 53.9. Italian Markit Manufacturing PMI seems to be on the rise with the forecasted values when compared to its previous release which was seen at 55.7. With the unemployment levels at 11.5%, we do not expect major changes in the Italian markets.

Germany Markit Manufacturing PMI is posted to hold the same levels.
Euro Markit Manufacturing PMI too seems to hold the margin like its previous value. It should be interesting to see the Unemployment Rate’s release as the forecasted results seems to be doing slightly well at 9.4% when compared to the previous release of 9.5%. This should boost the Euro not majorly but nonetheless should see some rise for the Euro.

Later for the day, we have New Zealand’s GDT Price Index to be released. There are no major releases for the day and it should be interesting to see how the greenback survives for the day as they have been moving slightly slowly since the start of this week.