Europe PMI Rises in September

The nascent recovery in euro zone businesses strengthened in September as order books filled at a faster rate and layoffs slowed to a trickle, surveys showed on Thursday, pointing to very mild growth in the third quarter.

Markit’s Euro zone Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a monthly survey of businesses, rose to 52.2 in September from August’s 50.7, little changed from a preliminary reading of 52.1. Readings above 50 signify growth.

Growth in services companies, comprising the vast bulk of the euro zone’s private sector, increased at the fastest pace since June 2011, offsetting a slightly slower pace of expansion in manufacturing last month.

Germany again led the expansion, while services firms in the bloc’s next largest economies – France and Italy – returned to growth after more than a year in the red.

Spanish services businesses, however, disappointed slightly, slipping back into contraction after achieving modest growth in August.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza