Economic news out of Europe continues to be sluggish

Economic news out of Europe continues to be sluggish as euro zone’s service sector contracted this month to 49.4 from Jan’s 50.4. The manufacturing sector was slightly better, with PMI rising from 48.8 in Jan to 49.0. The fear is that despite the 130 billion euro bailout rescue for Greece, the lingering financial crisis will push the euro zone economies into recession. The Greece deal buys time to stabilize the euro currency and strengthen its financial firewalls but it still leaves doubts about Greece’s economic recovery in the short to mid-term. Fitch rating agency cuts Greece’s sovereign debt rating to C from CCC, indicating that default is highly likely in the near term. The ECB will try to cut back on all the cheap financing for the banks as the credit crunch eases. The central bank wants to keep pressure on governments to improve their defense of the euro zone with better economic policies and strengthening the European Stability Mechanism. The Chinese economy is also struggling as data showed manufacturing shrinking for a fourth straight month. The lowering of the bank reserve rate last week also suggests that the economic growth and inflation data might be worse than the numbers suggest. The continued rise in commodity prices will also dampen the economic recovery worldwide as higher input cost will take a toll on various sectors and GDP overall. The US housing data this morning points to a slow recovery in the housing market. World equity markets are mostly lower with the US Dow Jones hovering around the unchanged level. Platinum and palladium are the strongest performers up 2% and 1.5% respectively. Gold, silver, copper, and crude are flat on the day. The commodities run appears to be overdone and heading towards a correction in the short term. Crude will remain strong as long as the Iranian situation continues to dominate the headlines.

Metals	Last	%Change	Low	High
Au- Apr	1758.4	-0.01%	1750.7	1761.8
Pt-Apr	1722.5	2.23%	1689.0	1723
Pd-Mar	721.6	1.53%	708.25	721.85
Ag-Mar	34.185	-0.71%	33.900	34.380
London	AM	PM	Minor	PGMs
Au	1754.75	1752	Rh	1540
Pt	1693	1698	Ru	135
Pd	711	713	Ir	1100
Ag	34.08	DJI	12947.34	-18.35
Currencies
	USD	EUR	JPY	GBP
USD	0	1.3252	0.012451	1.5683
EUR	0.7546	0	0.93959	1.1834
JPY	80.31	106.43	0	125.953
GBP	0.6376	0.84501	0.794	0
Crude Brent	122.8	Comex Copper	382.85
Crude WTI	106.1	Nat Gas	2.564
*THESE PRICES ARE FOR INDICATION ONLY CALL FOR QUOTES