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European manufacturing and US employment data disappoint

There was a raft of economic data hitting the wires this morning, and it didn’t all make for good reading. The most significant, and disappointing from Europe’s perspective, was German and French manufacturing activity, as judged by the March Purchasing Managers Indices. These came in at 46.2 and 46.9 respectively, below previous expectations, forecasts and importantly even further form the 50 level above which expansion is indicated. From the UK there were a variety of minor announcements, the most significant being the construction PMI which came in at 55.8, well ahead of forecasts.

French and German markets nonetheless opened up around 1% better off, not necessarily shrugging off the poor data but more a case of catching up from strong gains in the UK and the US yesterday whilst European markets were closed for a bank holiday. The early catch up was however relatively short lived, as news form the US indicated that the private sector had added the fewest amount of jobs since September of last year. The ADP non-farm employment change for April came in at 119,000, below the 183,000 and just days before the much anticipated ADP non-farm payrolls report.

The FTSE 100 finished the day down 0.65%, behind the 0.6% and 0.1% gains on the CAC and DAX respectively, although considerably better than the 1.8% and 2.6% losses on the Italian and Spanish indices.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James .