Investing.com -- The dollar was mixed after early trading in Europe on Tuesday as the first shots in a barrage of economic data failed to trigger any dramatic moves in major currencies.
In Asian trading, purchasing manager indexes for China came in slightly below expectations, in what analysts called evidence of ongoing factors holding the economy back, such as the lack of a trade deal with the U.S. and the threats to exports of high-value 5G goods and services.
“These uncertainties make us strongly believe that the Chinese government will continue its fiscal stimulus to support industrial sectors through infrastructure stimulus, and will provide enough credits to smaller private firms to keep them running and so stabilise the job market,” ING analyst Iris Pang said in a blog post.
The data pushed the yuan slightly lower, along with the Aussie and kiwi.
The Chinese data were followed by the first reading for French gross domestic product in the first quarter. As with the U.S. numbers last week, a solid headline number of 0.3% quarterly growth was made to look weaker by a strong contribution from inventories, which would normally be reversed in successive quarters.
There was less ambiguity in Germany’s consumer confidence report, where GfK’s index stayed unchanged from March’s level.
An estimate of Eurozone GDP is due at 05:00 AM ET (0900 GMT), while German jobless data for April are also due before then.
At 03:00 AM ET (0700 GMT), the euro was at $1.1192, extending a tentative and modest recovery falling to a two-year low last week.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was at 97.505, around 0.2% where it was a day earlier.
The British pound was also a touch higher despite a report in The Sun newspaper that Prime Minister Theresa May is to face an emergency meeting of local party heads at which she will likely be asked to stand down. The meeting will take place in June after the European parliament elections, at which May’s Conservatives appear likely to haemorrhage support to the newly-formed Brexit Party.
Of importance to the future course of Brexit is a meeting later today by the opposition Labour Party's national executive committee, which has to decide whether or not to include a commitment to a second referendum in its manifesto for the European elections, in the teeth of opposition from leader Jeremy Corbyn.