A beat on the headlines but the shine on that is taken off by the negative revision to January’s report. Nonetheless, the release here provides a general gauge of consumption activity in the region and the data beat here will at least provide some minor relief – if anything else – that Q1 economic activity isn’t all bad.

EUR/USD sits higher still at 1.1242 currently while EUR/JPY is also near the highs for the day at 125.40 as the dollar and yen remains weak on more upbeat risk tones.