Today the economic calendar will be busier than it was in the first two days of the week.
First off, Australia presented a better than expected services PMI for March. Spain did the same, though its own report remains below 50, which still indicates its economy is contracting rather than growing. Italy’s own services PMI narrowly missed the forecast and disappointed at 48.6.
Germany, however, exceeded the expectations of investors and presented great PMI numbers in both the composite and services reports. The eurozone-wide reading was also positive at 53.2.
The same cannot be said for the United Kingdom, which disappointed investors on both accounts, even though its PMIs remain above 56, which is better than the other countries mentioned above. Still, the forecasts for bigger growth in the UK in March did not come true.
Other key reports we await later today are the February Balance of Trade from Canada and the minutes from the most recent policy meeting of the Federal Reserve in the United States, along with a few Fed speeches.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic is causing serious tremors in the emerging markets. India confirmed over 115,000 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, its all-time highest number, as well as the latest maximum in an upward wave of infections.
This number might not even represent the peak of the pandemic in India if the trend continues this way. The country, which is the world’s largest producer of vaccines, has stopped exporting vaccines to other countries in order to vaccine its own vast population.
Another emerging market, Turkey, is also observing the same trend of a rapid increase in Covid-19 daily infection rates. It confirmed close to 50,000 new cases yesterday, another all-time record.
The economies of both India and Turkey have demonstrated unfavorably high inflation even before the surge of infections, so the pandemic could further worsen their domestic economic issues.
In other news, US stock indices continue to show mixed trends as they consolidate after last week’s rally. Today they will be flat to slightly up, but no serious gains are in store.
South Korean tech giant Samsung might be one company worth looking into today as it revealed higher than expected profits in Q1.
