German bunds nearly flat after January manufacturing PMI cheers investors

The German bunds remained nearly flat during European trading session Monday after the country’s manufacturing PMI for the month of January cheered market investors, rising above expectations ahead of the European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde’s speech, scheduled to be delivered today by 18:00GMT.

The German 10-year bond yield, which move inversely to its price, hovered around -0.438 percent, the long-term 30-year yield traded flat at 0.064 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year too remained steady at -0.676 percent by 10:45GMT.

January saw the headline IHS Markit/BME Germany manufacturing PMI – a single-figure snapshot of the performance of the manufacturing economy derived from indicators for new orders, output, employment, suppliers' delivery times and stocks of purchases – climb to an 11-month high of 45.3, from December's 43.7. The Index has now risen in three of the past four months from a ten-year low last September, though the latest reading was still firmly inside contraction territory.

"The recent improvement in manufacturers' expectations extended into January, with firms noting the influence of easing trade tensions and the prospect of a revival in exports. However, the picture has change somewhat in the short space of time since the survey was conducted [13-24 January], with the disruption to business in China from the coronavirus bound to have an impact on German manufacturers' exports and sentiment in the coming months," said Phil Smith, Principal Economist at IHS Markit.

Meanwhile, the German DAX traded tad 0.15 percent higher at 13,002.73 by 10:50GMT.