Eurostat's report on January industrial production across the European Union was not greeted as good news. The overview, from EUbusiness:
Eurozone industrial production rose by 0.5 percent in January from the figure for December and by 2.2 percent over 12 months, adjusted data from the EU statistics office Eurostat showed on Thursday.
Production had risen in December by 0.5 percent after a decline of 0.4 percent in November.
Throughout all 25 countries of the European Union, industrial production rose by 0.4 percent in January from the December figure and by 1.7 percent on a 12-month basis.
According to MarketWatch (via Investors.com) this was " much smaller-than-expected," and is not instilling confidence in euroland prospects.
"Though U.S. fundamentals certainly appear troublesome, especially in view of rising oil prices, the eurozone economy is faring much worse," said Boris Schlossberg, currency analyst with Forex Capital Markets in New York.
"This dynamic may prevent [euro-dollar] from making new highs, at least until significant new information becomes available to the market," he said.
And there was this from the Financial Times:
US Treasuries gained from market-wide flight to quality on Thursday as sharp slides in emerging markets raised investor interest in safe haven assets.
The first question in predicting the exodus from global dollar positions is clearly "exodus to where?"
UPDATE: I think Michael at Global Trader's Diary agrees.