It Seems Too Gloomy for Autos to Raise the Roof

Another epic fail. European stocks have tried several times this year to break a ceiling that’s been bearing down since July 2018. It seems there’s always a good reason to sell once that level is reached. This time, Europe’s macro data are to blame, with poor preliminary PMI readings. The manufacturing gauge keeps plummeting in Germany, which doesn’t bode well for one of the country’s top industries: cars.

German manufacturing PMI signaled “the sharpest decline in business conditions across the goods-producing sector since the depths of the global financial crisis in mid-2009,” writes IHS Markit. While France had held up until recently, weakness is now visible there, too. Just when autos look up, the poor data pull them back down.