Market movers today
In Europe focus will be on manufacturing PMIs for March. In the euro area the most interesting will be the fast estimates for Italy's and Spain's. In both cases we expect a slight improvement underscoring the recovery has become broad based with manufacturing activity gaining strength even in Italy. The UK manufacturing PMI will also be released but it is of secondary importance to the services PMI due for release next week.
In the US the main event is the release of the ISM manufacturing index for March. The US manufacturing sector so far appears to have been mixed in March, with the Markit flash PMI showing a small increase to a healthy 55.3, while the regional manufacturing surveys have been weak on balance including yesterday's Chicago PMI. We expect the ISM to take a small dip to 52.0 from 52.9 but we note that the Markit PMI has been a better indicator of manufacturing production lately than the ISM.
In the US the ADP employment report for March could give a first indication of the non-farm payroll report on Friday, although its track-record on predicting non-farm payrolls is mixed.
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