The European markets seem in a better mood this Thursday, even if the pound’s gains are preventing the FTSE from matching its eurozone peers.
A pretty hawkish hold from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday evening wasn’t enough for the dollar’s early in the week rebound to turn into a sustained comeback, with cable climbing 0.5% to send the pound back towards $1.425. Combine that with sterling’s 0.3% rise against the euro, lifting the pound to a one week peak against the single currency, and the FTSE had little room to mount its own turnaround this Thursday.
Even with adding 20 points, the index is barely off yesterday’s 2018 lows, trapped the wrong side of 7550 – as a point of reference, 2 weeks ago it was tickling an all-time high of 7800. The FTSE may well be hoping, then, that January’s UK manufacturing PMI misses analysts’ estimates of a 0.2 rise to 56.5, just so it takes the shine off of sterling.
Things were far perkier over in the eurozone. With the euro down against the pound and up just 0.1% against the dollar, the DAX and CAC were free to post some decent sized gains; the German index jumped 75 points, re-crossing 13250 in the process, while its French counterpart rose 0.7%. As for the region’s impending manufacturing data, the eurozone-wide reading is set to be confirmed at 59.6, pulling back from December’s record high of 60.6.
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