The US dollar is mostly confined to the pre-weekend trading ranges as participants prepare for this week's big events which include the BOE meeting, minutes and new forecasts, and the US jobs report. The main exception is the Canadian dollar, which remains under pressure following the unexpected contraction in May, and the weekend call for national elections in October. The Canadian dollar is off nearly 0.5%, with the US dollar at new multi-year highs.  Oil prices are at new six month  lows and also are taking a toll.  

Investors are particularly interested in two equity markets today:  Greece and China. The Athens Stock Exchange re-opened today for the first time since late-June. The losses were in line with what the ETFs that were trading in the UK and US showed, off about 20%. Banks and utilities were hit the hardest with 25% and 27% losses respectively.  Volume reportedly was less than 1% of the daily turnover prior to the closure. Separately, the Greek manufacturing PMI collapsed to 30.2 in July from 46.9 in June.  New orders plunged to 17.9 from 43.2.  Although manufacturing is a small part of the Greek economy (which is part of its economic challenge) the sheer magnitude of the decline is breathtaking.  

Chinese stocks fell again, with the Shanghai Composite off 1.1% and Shenzhen off 2.7%. Although the Shanghai market briefly slipped through the 200-day moving average (~3560), it managed to close above it, and  it held above the 3500 level, which it has not closed below since mid-March, and has not traded below since early July. Margin use fell for the sixth session before the weekend, and at CNY860 bln (~$138 bln) is the lowest in four-months.  Shares in an estimated 517 companies are still not trading.  

The economic highlight from the European morning is the new manufacturing PMI readings.  The EMU PMI increased to 52.4 from the 52.2 flash reading, leaving it almost unchanged from 52.5 in June. The improvement stems from a small upward revision for Germany (51.8 from 51.5 flash) and a stronger Italian report (55.3 from 54.1 in June, vs 53.9 consensus).  France was unchanged from the 49.6 flash.  This follows the 50.7 reading in June.  Spain's PMI slipped to 53.6 from 54.5 in June. This was a larger pullback than had been expected, but strong Q2 GDP reportedly last week (1.0% quarter-over-quarter) mitigates the disappointment,