Euro-area PMIs Surprise, but Swiss PMI Disappoints – Is an SNB Intervention Ahead?

February 1st, 2:51 pm by Barbara Zigah

(eToro Blog) In the broader Eurozone area, the earlier release of Purchasing Managers’ Indices for January offered investors a few surprises, most welcome but one decidedly not. In the United Kingdom, the Office of National Statistics read for January’s manufacturing PMI was reported higher at 52.1 from a revised reading of 49.7 and besting the consensus forecast of a reading of 49.8. The GBP/USD pair is trading just under the opening price at 1.5754 and sentiment on OpenBook has turned bearish. Trader kercado closed a long position ahead of the announcement to a 14% gain.

Eurostat reported that the PMI for the EMU area rose to 51.0, above the threshold which delineates expansion from contraction. A consensus of analysts had expected the reading to improve to 50.9 from the revised December reading of 49.7. Germany also showed an improvement in its manufacturing PMI data, though to a lesser extent than the EMU; the reading for January improved to 48.8 from 46.9, only fractionally better than the 48.7 consensus forecast.

The better than expected numbers gave the ever-resilient Euro yet another lift, boosting it from its earlier doldrums; the EUR/USD pair is currently trading higher at 1.3139. A glance at the OpenBook Traders’ Feed revealed one OpenBook trader who profited well on the news; trader hanamiman closed several longs earlier today, the most recent of which recorded a gain of 188%. This trader is still striving to post a positive return for the week but today’s gains should help toward that effort. Meanwhile, slow and steady generally wins the race, and guru Gavinwright closed out a handful of long positions with smallish gains to add to his 97.2% win ratio.

Finally, in Switzerland, the SVME posted the January reading for manufacturing PMI which showed a decline to 47.3 from the downwardly revised December reading of 49.1. The consensus call was for an improvement to 51.0. The EUR/CHF is currently higher at 1.2043, and on the OpenBook, traders are speculating about a possible SNB intervention; guru sadiqashanaz97 believes it could happen anytime now and has several open positions in the EUR/CHF pair just needing an SNB announcement to bring them around to gains.