Strong domestic demand drives new German factory orders up 0.6%. But will today's American employment report also beat expectations?
10.30am BST
Greek retail sales have taken another tumble, with turnover dropping by another 4.3% year-on-year in January.
Elstat's data , released this morning, showed that sales volumes fell 21% in monthly terms, as shoppers cut back after Christmas.
Morgan Stanley coins the term "GREcovery." I say best to nip that in the bud right now.
9.53am BST
Britain's car industry has just racked up its biggest month's sales in a decade, as consumers take advantage of cheap credit deals.
More than 464,000 new cars were sold in March alone, a 17,7% jump on a year ago, and the biggest surge since 2004.
There has never been a better time to buy a new car thanks to attractive finance deals and advanced technologies that often make new cars cheaper to run.
We expect the market to continue to perform positively for the rest of the year, albeit at a more modest rate.
Never mind the housing boom, look at the new car boom. Registrations in March up 17.7% on year ago, private up 20.8%: http://t.co/7HH8siRll4
9.32am BST
The latest UK house price index from Halifax contains a surprise - it reckons prices actually fell last month.
Halifax's survey shows a 1.1% drop in prices in March, compared to February, which may indicate that some heat came out of the market. However, on an annual basis prices jumped 8.7% in the first quarter of the year, the biggest rise since October 2007.
9.12am BST
If you'd declared two years ago that Spanish bond yields (interest rates) would be below the US equivalent today, you'd probably have been sent to a dark room to recover. But it happened, this morning.
Spanish five-year bonds are trading at a yield of just 1.78% this morning, dropping below the 1.79% level at which US five-year Treasury bills are changing hands.
#Spain 5Y bond yield lower than #US (for first time since 2007)... pic.twitter.com/4QPfbg1yBv
8.50am BST
The Turkish lira has taken a dive this morning after Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Turkey's central bank should hold an emergency meeting and cut interest rates.
He said:
[Bond] yields are falling. In line with this, the central bank will probably convene an extraordinary monetary policy committee meeting
Just like it convened extraordinarily last time to hike rates, this time it should convene and lower interest rates.
"We are of course bound by the Constitutional Court verdict, but I don't have to respect it. I don't respect this ruling,"
8.26am BST
In the City, Royal Bank of Scotland has confirmed the rumours and announced that it has lured Credit Suisse senior investment banker Ewen Stevenson to be its next chief finance officer.
Stevenson takes the hot seat in mid-May, as the state-owned bank continues with the gruelling task of cutting its balance sheet and refocusing on the UK.
At RBS we are determined to re-earn the trust of our customers and our continued financial health is central to that task. Ewen shares our vision for building a great customer bank and I look forward to working with him.
8.18am BST
The 0.6% rise in German factory orders in February suggests growth in Europes largest economy is gathering pace, with domestic demand cushioning weakness overseas.
So reckons Christian Schulz, senior economist at Berenberg Bank in London, who said:
The emerging market turbulences and the cold winter in the US may have at least temporarily prevented further growth in export orders.
Domestic demand and especially consumption are increasingly taking over the role of exports as growth locomotive. That insulates Germany a bit from troubles abroad and should continue to help the euro crisis countries via increased German imports.
8.11am BST
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the financial markets, the world economy, the eurozone and business.
And I should wish those of you in the markets a happy Non-Farm Payroll Day too. Later today (1.30pm GMT) the latest American jobs report is announced, and traders are expecting a big jump in employment as the US economy picks up pace after the winter.
"The data suggests industrial production will continue to revive in the coming months and momentum in domestic demand is picking up in the first quarter,"
Big revisions to January data but trend of German new orders is promising. First 2-months-in-a-row increase since Feb/Mar last year.
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