Euro a little softer

While there is a full day of trading today, markets won’t get fully back into the swing of things until next week. The euro and sterling are both a touch lower against the dollar (versus Wednesday’s close) at around $1.1715 and $1.3450 respectively, while the single currency is also a little softer against the pound at just over £0.87 (with slightly weaker than expected Euro area PMI manufacturing data for December weighing a bit on the euro).  In government bond markets, German and UK yields have edged higher this morning but remain in tight ranges, while in equity markets, European stocks have had a positive start to the day, up around 0.7% or so.