German bunds slump after April unemployment data, eurozone Q1 GDP cheers market investors

The German bunds slumped during European trading session Tuesday after the country’s unemployment data for the month of April cheered market participants, dropping far more than what was initially anticipated.

Also, the eurozone’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the first quarter of this year too contributed to the rise in bund yields.The German 10-year bond yields, which move inversely to its price, jumped nearly 3-1/2 basis points to 0.033 percent, the yield on 30-year note surged 3 basis points to 0.678 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year traded nearly 1 basis point up at -0.589 percent by 09:25GMT.

According to data released by the Federal Labour Office, the number of people out of work decreased by 12,000 to 2.220 million in seasonally adjusted terms, compared with the Reuters consensus forecast for a fall of 5,000. However, the jobless rate held steady at 4.9 percent, the lowest since German reunification in 1990.

Eurozone’s seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.4 percent in the euro area (EA19) and by 0.5 percent in the EU28 during the first quarter of 2019, compared with the previous quarter, according to a preliminary flash estimate published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the fourth quarter of 2018, GDP had grown by 0.2 percent in the euro area and by 0.3 percent in the EU28.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 1.2 percent in the euro area and by 1.5 percent in the EU28 in the first quarter of 2019, as in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, the German DAX remained tad lower at 12,319.14 by 09:30GMT, while at 09:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Euro Strength Index remained neutral at 111.30 (higher than +75 represents bullish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex