A Look at Spain Manufacturing PMI in January 2018

According to a report by Markit Economics, the Spain Manufacturing PMI rose to 55.2 in January 2018 compared to 55.8 in December 2017. The figure didn’t beat the preliminary market estimate of 55.7. It’s been falling gradually since its ten-year high of 56.1 in November 2017.

The performance was mainly due to the following:

• Production volume and output showed a weaker improvement in January 2018 compared to December 2017. However, factory activity improved at a higher rate that month.
• New business orders and export orders showed a stronger improvement in January 2018.
• Employment in the manufacturing sector showed a sharp improvement in January 2018.

The iShares MSCI Spain Capped (EWP), which tracks Spain’s performance, rose 8.6% in January 2018. The Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (VGK), which tracks Europe’s (HEDJ) (N100-INDEX) (IEV) economic performance, rose 5.6% in January 2018.

The overall positive sentiment across the major developed nations (EFA) and emerging nations (EEM) due to the improvement in global growth mainly helped the indexes and ETFs rise more in January 2018. However, political instability in major economies of the Eurozone could be a major concern for investors.

In the next part of this series, we’ll analyze the final Eurozone Manufacturing PMI for January 2018.