Daily Economic Outlook: May 6th, 2015

PMI services data will provide updates on the strength of the euro area (0800 GMT) and UK economies (0830 GMT) in April. For the euro area as a whole, these are final estimates of already released data and are expected to be unchanged. There will, however, be new estimates for some countries including Italy and Spain. In the UK, the March estimate was a 7-month high, suggesting that momentum in the services sector remains solid. For April, Lloyds Bank sees for some modest easing in the headline balance to 58.5, this would still point to stronger momentum in the UK's services sector than suggested by the preliminary estimate of Q1 GDP data.
In the US the ADP employment estimate (1215 GMT) will provide the last update on the April labour market prior to Friday's payrolls report. A monthly gain of about 200k is expected. The ADP report is by no means an infallible predictor of payrolls. It failed to predict March's soft data and the average differential of the initial estimates over the last 24 months has been about 35k. Nevertheless, its historic correlation with the official payrolls number has been at least as good as any other indicator and so an outturn close to expectations would be an important signal that payrolls growth is likely to rebound in April. Several Fed speakers including Fed Chair Yellen will provide updates on their thinking during the day.