European manufacturing is holding steady

Europe's manufacturing sector is bang in line with where economists expected it to be.

Markit's closely watched PMI reading just came in for June. It's a measure of the output from the sector and anything above 50 signals growth.

European manufacturing PMI for June was 52.5, in line with forecasts and above May's figure of 52.2.

Here's the country-by-country breakdown of manufacturing readings we got this morning:

• Spain's manufacturing PMI reading came in at 54.5, below analysts forecasts of 55.5.
• Italy's PMI was 54.1, missing forecasts of 54.4.
• France beat expectations with a reading of 50.7, compared to economists' predictions of 50.5.
• Germany was in-line, at 51.9.
• Greece's manufacturing sector continues to shrink, with a reading of 46.9 from March's 48 figure.

Britain's Manufacturing PMI reading is due at 9.30 a.m. GMT.