German bunds trade slightly higher ahead of July industrial production, trade balance

The German bunds traded slightly higher during European session Thursday as investors wait to watch the country’s industrial production and trade balance for the month of July, scheduled to be released on September 7 by 06:00GMT and 09:00GMT respectively.

The German 10-year bond yields, which move inversely to its price, slipped 1/2 basis point to 0.374 percent, the yield on 30-year note also fell 1/2 basis point to 1.050 percent and the yield on short-term 2-year traded nearly 1-1/2 basis points lower at -0.580 percent by 10:15GMT.

Today’s most interesting new economic data from Europe are Germany’s factory orders figures for July, already released this morning. And the figures were once again bitterly disappointing, highlighting the significant deterioration in momentum in Germany’s manufacturing sector.

Contrary to expectations of a rebound, total orders dropped by nearly 1 percent m/m in July. This followed a decline of almost 4.0 percent m/m the previous month, and represented a sixth monthly decline in the first seven months of the year. And it left the level of sales down almost 1.0 percent compared to a year earlier and about 8 percent from its peak reached in December.

The manufacturing turnover data, which have a strong coincident correlation with production, showed a decline of 1.8 percent m/m suggesting that tomorrow’s output figures will most likely come in weaker than have until now been expected. And the orders data point to continued weakness in output ahead.

Meanwhile, the German DAX rose 0.35 percent to 12,082.46 by 10:20GMT, while at 10:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Euro Strength Index remained neutral at 11.25 (higher than +75 represents bullish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex