Bonds: Gilts outperform Treasuries, but end lower too
These were the movements in some of the most widely-followed 10-year sovereign bond yields:
US: 2.38% (+6bp)
UK: 1.31% (+2bp)
Germany: 0.38% (+0bp)
France: 0.73% (-0bp)
Spain: 1.54% (-1bp)
Portugal: 1.98% (-2bp)
As usual, Gilts's performance was more closely aligned to that of US Treasury notes on Thursday than to other European sovereigns, although they outperformed their US cousins by a wide margin despite a stronger-than-expected reading on retail sales.
According to ONS, retail sales grew by 0.3% month-on-month in October (consensus: 0.2%).
Nonetheless, and as Fabrice Montagne at Barclays observed, the quarterly annualised rate of growth has slipped to just 1%, down from the almost 6% at which stood roughly one year back.
"Other sales surveys and indicators such as credit card spending also indicate a subdued outlook for sales. This is in line with our forecast of subdued consumption growth over the coming quarters," he said.
Over in the States, by far the most interesting bit of data, which came against the backdrop of a bounce in risk apettite, was the Federal Reserve's estimate of industrial production for October.
Total US industrial output surged by 0.9% month-on-month, according to the Fed, led by a 1.3% jump in factory production.
"Overall, we think the industrial sector is in decent shape, but it's dangerous to read too much into data for a single month when the key driver of activity is a rebound from a weather event," was the take on the data from Ian Shepherdon's at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Barclays's Michael Gapen on the other hand was more upbeat, telling clients: "Looking forward, and given our expectation that some of the October outperformance is due to the production bounce-back following the large hurricanes that temporarily halted activity in late August and early September, we expect less robust growth in industrial production for the remainder of the quarter.
"That said, strength in PMIs in the US and globally, and the synchronized nature of global growth, point to solid manufacturing activity overall in Q4."
Thursday's US IP numbers pushed Barclays's tarcking estimate for fourth quarter GDP growth up by a tenth of a percentage point to 3.7%.