Euro area manufacturing PMI for December revised slightly higher
Activity levels in the single currency bloc's manufacturing sector hit seven year-lows at the tail-end of 2019, with output falling at its fastest pace since 2012, although the slowdown was not quite as bad as initially feared, revised data showed.
IHS Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index for the euro area factory sector in December was revised higher from a preliminary reading of 45.9 to 46.3.
That followed a print of 46.9 for November and was better than the reading of 45.9 which analysts had penciled-in, although for the whole of the fourth quarter the PMI averaged just 46.4, the same as the previous quarter's near seven-year low.
Nonetheless, as Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, put it: "Although firms grew somewhat more optimistic about the year ahead, a return to growth remains a long way off given that new order inflows continued to fall at one of the fastest rates seen over the past seven years."
Also according to Williamson, households provided the only source of increased demand in December, underscoring that sector's importance in sustaining economic growth more broadly - but it remained to be seen how long that might last.
"Both production and new orders continued to deteriorate markedly during December," IHS Markit said, adding that the decline seen in output levels was the eleventh consecutive month drop.
By sectors, the intermediate and investment goods sectors underperformed, with PMIs for the two "remaining well inside negative territory", IHS Markit said.
Consumer goods on the other hand recorded "marginal" growth, although that did mark the first increase since August.
Weakness was widespread by countries with seven of the eight surveyed registering lower PMI readings month-on-month.
Austria was the exception.
Claus Vistesen at Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "Aggregating this information to the EZ as a whole doesn’t look pretty. [...] the overall picture is grim.
"Work backlogs were further reduced and inventory accumulation slowed at the end of Q4, which in turn, pushed the rate of job losses up to its fastest pace since 2013. [...] the Q4 data as a whole provide the first small piece of evidence that the pace of decline is easing, but we are not expecting much in the way of a rebound in H1 2020."