It’s all about services PMI data today and already overnight we’ve seen softer figures from China, but this doesn’t seem to have dented any of the indices or currencies as one would usually expect. The Aussie dollar for example has barely battered an eyelid, still trading around the 0.9340 level following its bounce last Friday, like many of the other majors that benefitted from the dollar retracement, up from the support around 0.9280. The lack of risk aversion from this data comes as a surprise and normally you would expect AUDUSD to move to the downside, but last week did see slightly better data from China. It also goes to show that for now the dollar bulls are not quite ready yet to reassert themselves.
This morning will be the turn for the European and UK services PMI figures. It will be interesting to see if the French figure can climb back above the 50.0 level as expected since this has been languishing below here indicating contraction for a couple of months and the underperforming French economy has been a topic of great debate in recently. The UK survey due at 9.30 London time can often cause some movement in sterling so the figure of 57.9 should be watched, a small rise on last month.
Also this morning sees Eurozone retail sales which are expected to rise, then later on this afternoon it’ll be the turn of the US to release their non-manufacturing PMI which is due to rise from 56.0 to 56.3 Worth noting also is unemployment data from New Zealand overnight which is expected to post a decline from 6.0% to 5.8%.
Further reading:
UK services PMI figures
Market Movers Podcast Test Episode #10: ECB past and present, US data run down and current state of oil
