A much busier day ahead as far as announcements go as we bid the New Years public holidays a fond farewell.

Europe is releasing a swathe of data. This includes: Spanish & Italian Services PMI’s, European/German/French Final Services PMI’s, Spanish Unemployment Change, European CPI & Core Flash Estimate and Italian Prelim CPI. The PMI’s are vital in gauging the relative strength of the services sector in the individual EU countries. The unemployment data is vital in tracking the strength of the Spanish labour market (which of late has been trending quite well). Finally, the CPI figures are important as they help determine inflationary pressures within Europe as well as Italy.

The UK is also releasing a few pieces of data. This includes: Construction PMI, Net Lending to Individuals, M4 Money Supply and Mortgage Approvals. All of these figures go hand in hand and can help us get an understanding of the strength of the building and construction sector. The PMI reflects construction activity, Mortgage Approvals reflects home buying, with a percentage of total mortgage approvals would consist of newly constructed homes. The money supply data reflects money in circulation within the economy. An increase in construction means people are spending money, which in turn means that money is flowing through the economy. Finally, the Net Lending data indicates people borrowing money (which a lot would go towards construction of such things as homes).