3 numbers to watch: Eurozone GDP, German Ind. Prod., ECB rates

Overnight's Australian GDP for the first quarter finally got us a good start to the day as the economy grew 1.3% q/q (mind you, not annualised like in the US) vs. 0.6% expected and 4Q'11 was also revised a tad higher. Andrew Robinson has more on Australian GDP in his Asia Today FX Update. We get more GDP figures today, as the final 1Q'12 Eurozone GDP report will be out, as will German Industrial Production and the ECB. Also, for those interested, the Fed's Beige Book will be out tonight at 18:00 GMT.

• 1Q'12 Eurozone GDP (final, 09:00) to stay unchanged: The battling monetary union surprised to the upside in the initial Q1 report, printing 0% q/q vs. -0.2% expected, and in this second and final report we get a more complete view of the picture. The zone's largest economy, Germany, also surprised to the upside and was not revised down in the final report, which showed private consumption up 0.4%, government consumption up 0.2%, with exports surging 1.7% and imports flat. Gross fixed capital investment was on the negative side in Q1, declining 1.1%. Today's Eurozone report is likely to show much of the same though private and government consumption will be weaker than in the German counterpart. Consensus looks for unchanged growth of 0% q/q (0% y/y).
• Apr. German Industrial Production (10:00) to miss expectations? German Factory Orders, which naturally lead production, missed expectations by printing -1.9% m/m vs. -1.1%,though the previous month was revised quite a bit higher (3.2% from 2.2%). This suggests a similar thing could happen to production today with April missing expectations, but March being revised higher. Let's see...

• European Central Bank (11:45) announces interest rates: Despite the poor development in economic indicators and weakness in (credit) markets, the ECB looks set to be on hold for a least another month with today's announcement,  which we expect will an unchanged 1% rate (48 of 60 surveyed analysts look for unchanged rates, 12 look for lower). However, more liquidity provisions could be announced or at the least hinted - this could be more LTROs. Inflation continues to decelerate (though at a slow pace) as economic conditions weigh on price pressures and temporary factors fade, though it remains above 2% at 2.6% currently. President Mario Draghi will speak at the press conference at 12:30.