It is PMI day once again in Europe

Happy Friday, everyone! Hope you're all doing well as we look to get things going in the session ahead. Markets are keeping a bit more steady despite concerns surrounding the new coronavirus as it casts some element of uncertainty ahead of the weekend.

China is off for a long break - from today to 30 January - and with more and more cases (as well as suspected cases) being reported globally, fear could easily return back to markets if the situation becomes more delicate moving forward.

The SARS virus back in 2002-03 gripped markets for about four to five months at the time, so if this threatens to be more serious than that (especially now with world travel being so accessible) then we are likely to see things get worse still before they get better.

Looking ahead today, the euro and pound will be in focus in European morning trade as we will get January flash PMI data in the hours to come.

0815 GMT - France January flash manufacturing, services, composite PMI

0830 GMT - Germany January flash manufacturing, services, composite PMI

0900 GMT - Eurozone January flash manufacturing, services, composite PMI

Expectation is for the data to show a mild improvement relative to December - manufacturing in particular - so make sure to pay attention to any significant beats/misses. The German release should be of more importance but the French release will also help set the tone when it is out 15 minutes earlier before the German release.

0930 GMT - UK January flash manufacturing, services, composite PMI

This will be a bit of a significant one for the pound as the latest readings here will reflect post-election sentiment. Expectation is for the data to improve relative to December, so any major disappointment may yet spur markets to price in a BOE rate cut next week more heavily than it is at the moment - around ~60%.

Also, the ECB will be releasing its latest survey of professional forecasters at 0900 GMT but it isn't really viewed as a significant release - though it would act as an accompaniment to the ECB outlook/view in general.

There will also be a couple of notable speakers in Davos for the WEF - including ECB president Lagarde (again!) - but I will highlight them separately in a bit later.

That's all for the session ahead. I wish you all the best of days to come and good luck with your trading!