Tomorrow will bring a trove data that may change the outlook of what the ECB could do at its meeting. France and Germany are providing advance CPI and GDP data for March in anticipation of Eurozone-wide figures being released next week. Immediately following that, the ECB will hold its policy meeting, and there’s rampant speculation about what could happen there.
First, let’s look at the data
France is likely to start what could be an extremely volatile day for the Euro. Key data will come out in the first couple of minutes of the opening of the markets. The first report usually sets the tone for the day because the figures are generally in line. However, if the data is significantly different, the Euro pairs could reverse.
The preliminary Q1 GDP forecast for France shows a quarterly growth rate of 0.1%. This would be the same for the previous. This implies a growth rate of only 0.3% per year, down from the 0.5% of last December. France has experienced a number of strikes which have hindered production despite lower energy costs that could have helped businesses overcome the supply issue.
CPIs and GDPs
Each German state will publish its CPI monthly report in the next few minutes…
