{"id":429294,"date":"2026-04-07T14:40:58","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/04\/spain-march-services-pmi-53-3-vs-50-5-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:40:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T07:40:58","slug":"spain-march-services-pmi-53-3-vs-50-5-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/spain-march-services-pmi-53-3-vs-50-5-expected-429294\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain March services PMI 53.3 vs 50.5 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior 51.9<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">Well, don&#8217;t let the headline estimate fool you. Spain&#8217;s services sector increased solidly last month owing to a further rise in new business received by<br \/>\ncompanies. However, new order growth softened to its lowest level in<br \/>\nnine months as the latest Middle East developments start to give rise to uncertainty. Of note, new export sales declined again, whilst confidence in the outlook<br \/>\nwas the lowest since September 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">Besides that, higher energy prices are also starting to be a factor as overall<br \/>\noperating expenses rose at a rate not seen since April 2023. That comes as input price inflation surges and is going to become more and more of a problem in the months ahead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">HCOB notes that:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">\u201cSpain\u2019s service sector expanded at a solid rate in March,<br \/>\nwith growth picking up on February\u2019s low. However,<br \/>\ndespite this improvement, when combined with a<br \/>\ndownturn in manufacturing output in March, Spain\u2019s<br \/>\neconomy has experienced a weaker growth profile overall<br \/>\nin the first quarter of 2026. Expect therefore official data<br \/>\non GDP for early 2026 to show a slower rate of expansion<br \/>\nthan the 0.8% quarterly gain reported for the fourth<br \/>\nquarter of 2025.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">\u201cHow growth will develop in the coming months will be<br \/>\nvery much dependent on the duration of the war in the<br \/>\nMiddle East. The conflict has already led to a huge degree<br \/>\nof business and consumer uncertainty, with panellists<br \/>\nnoting that services new business growth has softened,<br \/>\nand export business, already under strain before the start<br \/>\nof the war, has deteriorated sharply.\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-align-justify\">\u201cMoreover, services firms are seeing big spikes in their<br \/>\nenergy and fuel bills, leading to the strongest increase<br \/>\nin overall input costs for nearly three years. With output<br \/>\ncharges also rising markedly, firms are understandably<br \/>\nworried about the impact that high prices will have on<br \/>\nspending in the near-term \u2013 and therefore their business<br \/>\nperformance over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior 51.9 Well, don&#8217;t let the headline estimate fool you. Spain&#8217;s services sector increased solidly last month owing to a further rise in new business received by companies. However, new order growth&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}