-Eurozone services PMI as expected
-German retail sales ahead of forecasts
-Several US FOMC members probably appropriate stop well before end 2013

FTSE-100: -0.11%
Dax-30: -0.17%
Cac-40: -0.29%
FTSE-Mibtel 30: 0.01%
Ibex 35: 0.23%
Stoxx 600: -0.14%

The main European equity benchmarks are now registering small falls, with the only exception of the main periphery indices.

The above follows the release of the minutes of the US Federal Reserve´s last rate setting meeting, at which several of its policy makers seemed to put forward the possibility of halting its current bond repurchase program towards the middle of the year.

Also worth pointing out, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) calls attention today to the fact that Spanish authorities have been employing the state´s pension reserve fund as a last ditch buyer of sovereign bonds. This was already known, but may be worth watching nonetheless.

All of the above comes ahead of a barrage of economic data which is to be released Stateside this afternoon.

Cyclicals lead falls

Airbus looks set to post sales of around 900 aircraft for 2012 and exceed its target of 580 deliveries after a record month in December, a Reutersanalysis of industry figures showed.

German automobile manufacturer BMW said its US December sales rose 34.8% to 43,855 vehicles.

Daimler´s US unit unveiled sales in December which totaled 31,372 vehicles, up 12% from the same month last year.

From a sector stand-point the best performance within the DJ Stoxx 600 is now to be seen in the following group´s of shares: Basic resources (-0.93%), Technology (-0.56%) and Media (-0.44%).

Better than expected German data
The Eurozone service sector purchasing managers index for the month of December has come in at 47.8, just as expected.

German retail sales rose by 1.2% month-on-month in November, ahead of the 0.8% rise which had been foreseen by analysts.

Small drop in the single currency
The euro/dollar is now retreating slightly, by 0.18%, to the 1.3020 dollar mark.

Front month Brent crude futures are now off by 0.439 dollars to the 111.65 dollar level.



AB

Related share prices