Events that marked the week:
From Eurozone on Monday, Spanish and Italian Manufacturing PMI data was published. Operating conditions in the Spanish manufacturing sector continued to improve in April as production increased markedly. That said, slower rises in new orders, employment and purchasing activity were recorded. Meanwhile, the rate of input cost deflation slowed sharply and was the weakest in eight months. The seasonally adjusted Markit Spain Purchasing Managers' Index posted 53.5 in April, up fractionally from 53.4 in the previous month and signalling a further solid improvement in the health of the sector. Business conditions have now improved in each of the past 29 months.
The upturn in Italy's manufacturing economy gathered speed at the start of the second quarter, with production growth picking up amid a faster increase in new orders. Both employment and purchasing activity were raised accordingly. Meanwhile, there were further cuts to producer prices as purchasing costs continued to tumble. The headline Markit/ADACI
Italy Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index climbed to 53.9 in April from March's 53.5, signalling the strongest improvement in business conditions in 2016 so far. The index was also slightly above its average for 2015.
On Wednesday, only minor importance Spanish Unemployment Change data was released. The number of unemployed in Spain registered at the offices of the Public Employment Services in April decreased by 83,599 persons in relation to the previous month. Analysts were expecting decrease by 86,600. Thus, the total number of registered unemployed stood at 4,011,171. In seasonally adjusted terms, unemployment lowered by 8,329 people in April. In the last 12 months unemployment has fallen by 321,845 people.
This week markets will be looking at:
German Factory Orders (Monday 8:00)
Flash GDP (Friday 11:00)
German Prelim CPI (Friday)
