German bunds plunge despite lower-than-expected March manufacturing PMI, eurozone CPI

The German bunds plunged during European session Monday even after the country’s manufacturing PMI for the month of March came in lower than market expectations, coupled with eurozone’s consumer price inflation for the similar period, which also disappointed market expectations.

The German 10-year bond yields, which move inversely to its price, jumped 2 basis points to -0.047 percent, the yield on 30-year note surged nearly 3 basis points to 0.604 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year traded tad higher at -0.608 percent by 11:00GMT.

The headline IHS Markit/BME Germany Manufacturing PMI – a single-figure snapshot of the performance of the manufacturing economy – dropped sharply in March to 44.1 from 47.6 in February. This was the lowest reading since July 2012 in the midst of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, and also below the preliminary 'flash' figure of 44.7.

Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 1.4 percent in March 2019, down from 1.5 percent in February according to a flash estimate from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, energy is expected to have the highest annual rate in March (5.3 percent, compared with 3.6 percent in February), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (1.8 percent, compared with 2.3 percent in February), services (1.1 percent, compared with 1.4 percent in February) and non-energy industrial goods (0.2 percent, compared with 0.4 percent in February).

Meanwhile, the German DAX rose 1 percent to 11,640.49 by 11:10GMT, while at 11:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Euro Strength Index remained neutral at -57.84 (higher than +75 represents bullish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex