European markets up on earnings and EMU PMI

The January EMU PMI Composite rose from 47.2 to 48.6 in January, beating consensus of 48.2. This coupled with upbeat earnings reports in the Eurozone allowed the major indexes to edge higher on Tuesday. The German DAX 30 (+0.30%), the French CAC (+1.00%), the Italian FTSE (+1.24%), and the Spanish IBEX 35 (+1.85%) are performing well, like the Scandinavian indexes and the British FTSE 100 (+0.73%).

EMU Services PMI came in at 48.6 too. The German PMI Services is more expansionary, from 52.0 to 55.7 in January, beating consensus of 55.3. Spain had a better than expected figure, the strongest print for 19-months at 47 (instead of 44.1), while Italy disappointed at 43.9 (instead of 45.8) and France came in line with consensus, at 43.6.

EMU retail sales disappointed by falling further, from -1.9% (revised from -2.6%) to -3.4% in December (YoY), instead of improving to -1.1% as expected. On the month, sales contracted -0.8%, instead of the -0.3% consensus.

Futures for the American S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and Dow Jones 30 are signaling a higher opening, by +0.45%, ahead of FOMC Duke speech and ISM non-manufacturing PMI, that is expected to ease from 56.1 to 55.8 in January.