This morning’s data shows how divergent an economic “union” the Eurozone is
The Eurozone shares a common currency. That's about all it shares, as illustrated nicely by this morning's Markit purchasing managers' index (PMI) figures.
November's service sector activity across the currency bloc is all over the place.
Germany's is growing at a tremendous pace, with a headline PMI of 55.7 (any number above 50 implies expansion), up from 52.9 last month. German PMI across all sectors is at a 29-month high.
Meanwhile in Italy and France, last month's promising outlook has evaporated. They've fallen from 50.5 to 47.2 and 50.9 to 48 respectively – both have seen their service sectors return to contraction.
Putting together the whole picture sees that Eurozone activity across all sectors has "lost some momentum" in November, according to Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
"It's clearly a concern that the rate of growth remains so fragile", he adds.
