On the final day of the month the European markets erred on the positive, after stumbling at yesterday’s close.
News that the German economy contracted faster than forecast – shrinking by 1.7% in Q1 against the expected 1.5% – failed to stop the DAX climbing 0.4%. Though that’s in large part due to the size of yesterday’s pullback.
The French economy, on the other hand, returned to growth in the first quarter, expanding by 0.4% – notably better than both the 0.0% stagnation predicted by analysts, and the -1.4% posted in Q4. However, this didn’t do much for the CAC, which started the session flat at 6,250.
With no data of its own to deal with, the FTSE wasn’t up to much, rising 0.1% to 6,970, after failing to hold at 7,000 on Thursday.
Potentially set to disrupt these fragile gains, the Dow Jones is heading for a 0.2% drop when trading starts Stateside. That’d knock the index back below 34,000 after it clawed its way above that key level last night.
The US economic calendar is light on grade A stuff, though a jump in the core PCE price index – from 0.1% to 0.3% – may cause a wobble if investors have their inflation-related tin foil hats on.
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