BREAKING: Euro gains after German PMI beat

Flash PMI indices for January from France and Germany were released today at 8:15 am GMT and 8:30 am GMT. While the French release turned out to be more or less as expected by the markets, a big surprise was reported in German data with both manufacturing and services indices beating expectations.

France

• Manufacturing: 55.5 vs 55.5 expected (55.6 prior)

• Services: 53.1 vs 55.3 expected (57.0 prior)

Germany

• Manufacturing: 60.5 vs 57 expected (57.4 prior)

• Services: 52.2 vs 48.0 expected (48.7 prior)

Reaction of the markets to flash PMIs for January has been rather small. Indices were recovering from a lower opening when French data was released and a print triggered a small pullback. Meanwhile, much better-than-expected German data lead to a barely noticeable bounce on the DE30 market. Euro can be seen as the winner of the situation with EURUSD moving higher after both releases. The main currency pair is trading a touch below 1.1330 handle.

EURUSD gained after flash PMI releases but scale of moves was rather small. Source: xStation5