Money Minute Wednesday 5 February: private sector performance

Good morning and welcome to Money Minute, where we preview the day's biggest financial stories.

In the UK this morning, we find out how the private sector fared in January. The PMI survey reading is likely to show that activity in the manufacturing, construction and services sectors all improved last month, with services showing the strongest growth. Whether this “Boris bounce” will be reflected in more concrete economic data to be released later this month remains to be seen.

Also in the morning, we get the same data for the eurozone. Overall, activity is expected to have continued to grow, but with a fair amount of variation across the region.

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In the US this afternoon, we get data on services sector activity for January. The services sector is by far the most important contributor to US economic growth. Activity in the sector remains strongly positive. It has also been rebounding since the fourth quarter of last year, after slowing for much of 2019, and analysts expect this to continue.