Plenty of data for traders to digest tonight, with most announcements coming out of Europe.

Europe will be releasing a host of data later today. This data includes: Italian & Spanish Services PMI’s, European, German & French Final Services PMI’s, Spanish Unemployment Change, European Retail Sales and Swiss SECO Consumer Climate. The PMI data is crucial in getting an indication of the strength of the services sector, not only within Europe, but for the continent’s largest national economies. The individual country figures are important as these countries ‘lead’ the EU. That is, because they are the largest economies, the EU relies on those economies remaining strong.

Aside from announcements, the French Presidential Election continues to heat up, with candidates Le Pen and Macron both taking part in the final national debate last night. This leaves just a few days of campaigning until the poll open on Sunday. The remaining days will no doubt be fierce, especially since we have already seen protesting in the streets earlier in the week. ECB President, Mario Draghi, is also due to speak in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

Elsewhere around the world, there are still a number of announcements due for publication. These include: UK Services PMI, Net Lending to Individuals, M4 Money Supply and Mortgage Approvals, while the US is releasing Challenger Job Cuts, Unemployment Claims, Prelim Nonfarm Productivity, Prelim Unit Labour Costs, Factory Orders, Natural Gas Storage and Trade Balance. Finally, Canada is publishing Trade Balance figures.