UK Preliminary Manufacturing PMI improves to 60.7 in April, GBP/USD stays below 1.39
|- UK Manufacturing PMI beats estimates with 60.7 in Apr.
- Services PMI in the UK jumps to 60.1 in Apr, a beat.
- GBP/USD keeps its range below 1.3900 despite the upbeat UK PMIs.
The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit/CIPS UK Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) jumped to 321-month highs of 60.7 in April versus 59.0 expected and 58.9 – March’s final reading.
Meanwhile, the Flash UK Services Business Activity Index for April rose to 60.1 versus March’s final readout of 56.3 and 59.0 expected. The index reached the highest levels in 80 months.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, commented on the survey
“Companies are reporting a surge in demand for both goods and services as the economy opens up from lockdowns and the encouraging vaccine roll-out adds to a brighter outlook. In more than 23 years of PMI history, we have only seen one spell of faster growth than this, recorded between August and November 2013.”
"Business activity should continue to grow strongly in May and June as virus restrictions are eased further, setting the scene for a bumper second quarter for the economy.”
FX implications
The upbeat UK Preliminary Manufacturing and Services PMIs failed to inspire the GBP bulls, as GBP/USD retreated towards 1.3850.
The spot was last seen trading at 1.3863, still up 0.21% on the day.
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