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The Eurozone periphery bonds rallied on the first trading day of the week as investors poured into safe-haven instruments ahead of the zone’s consumer price inflation index (CPI), scheduled to be released on June 16. Also, the benchmark German 10-year bund auction will render further direction to the debt market.
The benchmark German 10-year bond yields, which moves inversely to its price, fell 1 basis point to 0.24 percent, the French 10-year bond yields, slumped 4 basis points to 0.60 percent, Irish 10-year bond yield plunged 2 basis points to 0.66 percent, Italian equivalent nose-dived 7 basis points to 2.01 percent, Netherlands 10-year bonds yield slipped nearly 1-1/2 basis points to 0.46 percent, Portuguese equivalents fell 4 basis points to 2.97 percent and the Spanish 10-year yields slipped 3 basis points to 1.41 percent by 09:20 GMT.
In the euro area, this week will bring just a handful of notable releases. Perhaps most notable today was the Bank of France’s business sentiment survey for May, which tallied with other recent surveys to suggest that confidence was relatively elevated last month. In particular, the headline manufacturing sector indicator was unchanged at as six-year high of 105 as firms remained upbeat about production prospects.
Services firms also assessed conditions to be little changed on the month, with the indicator in April (101) having also risen to its highest since mid-2011. And so, with construction firms more upbeat in May (with the relevant index reversing the 1pt drop in April), the Bank of France assessed the survey results to be consistent with an acceleration in GDP growth in Q2 to 0.5 percent, bang in line with our own forecast for the current quarter.
Meanwhile, the pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.77 percent at 387.40, German DAX fell 0.61 percent to 12,737.00, France’s CAC40 plunged 0.74 percent to 5,260.50, and the PSI20 Index traded 0.39 percent lower at 5,278.05 by 09:30 GMT, while at 09:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Euro Strength Index stood neutral at 1.97 (higher than +75 represents bullish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex
