- Euro zone March flash composite PMI 48.7, down from 49.3 in Feb and below Reuter’s median forecast of 49.7.
- German March flash manufacturing PMI 48.1, services PMI 51.8 much weaker than Reuters forecast of 51.0 and 53.0
- French March flash manufacturing PMI 47.6, services PMI 50.0 much weaker again than Reuters 50.3 and 50.6 forecasts
- UK Feb Retail Sales fall -0.8% m/m ( exp -0.5%)+1% y/y
- BOJ Gov Shirakawa: Japan’s sustainable inflation level may rise if potential growth boosted
- BOJ’s Morimoto: Must continue to watch European situation
- Buba chief Weidmann: German budget plans unambitious
- BUBA not pushing ECB to wind up covered bond purchases
- David Blanchflower: OBR’s credibility is in “tatters”
- Germany may seek to run euro rescue funds in parallel – Die Welt says
- Swiss February trade balance +2677 mln vs revised +1496 mln in January,exports up 19.7% in February year on year in nominal terms.,
A messy morning that started off quietly enough with the EUR/USD pushing up to 1.3255 on a recovery from the weak Chinese PMI data in Asia . French PMI soon changed things though, with a fall back to around 1.3215 with an appalling reading of 47.6 from expectations of 50.3 .
Germany’s turn next, and their PMI came in at 48.1 against expectations of 51.0, which scythed the euro down to around 1.3175 and then the EU composite PMI came in at 48.7 from 49.3 in Feb which led a further move to 1.3150 as Spanish Italian and French CDS’s soared.
BIS and Russian bids at the level held for a while but gave way to hit stops at 1.3140 to lows of 1.3133.
Bounces have been shallow since stalling into the mid 1.3160’s
GBP/USD was crushed from 1.5892 down to 1.5783 following very poor retail sales . EUR/GBP spiked to 0.8340 on the back of the release
USD/JPY was dragged lower on stop runs in EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY. The USD plunged through 83.00 from the mid 83.30’s tripping stops through 83.00 and 82.85 to 82.78 and so far has failed to bounce significantly.
EUR/JPY was smashed down through stops at 110.00 and more through 109.50, 109.00 to 108.79
AUD/USD continued the slide in Asia but was cushioned somehwat by EUR/AUD’s collapse from 1.2740 to 1.2673. AUD/USD fell to the Ichimoku cloud base around 1.0355 from 1.0417, finding some good bids there from the mining mob and some Aussie corporates.
Elsewhere European stocks all tumbled with most in the red by around 1-1.5%, Gold fell off around 20 bucks to 1632 and WTI was off just over a buck on the session to lows of 105. 65
