Forexlive European Wrap: Doldrums greet the new month amid low volumes and European holidays

UK April manufacturing PMI 50.5 ( expected 51.5) from 51.9 in March Irish April mfg PMI falls to 50.1 from 51.5 in March AEP in the Telegraph ....“A Glimmer of hope for the austerity wasteland of Southern Europe” All a bit of a damp squib after the RBA initially surprised  with a 50 bps cut in Asia this morning. The move came despite marginally improved  Chinese PMI data (although below expectations), but showed the RBA was  taking a braver stance and this in turn may lead to a boost in confidence. European holidays, together with Golden week in Asia have made trading largely directionless ahead of the US open. AUD/USD fell back in early Europe to  1.0306 but is finding some support ahead of 1.0300, and there are exporters bids of better size sitting down at 1.0280/90, but the pair largely rangebound in a dour European session. EUR/USD picked up on some early model demand  from 1.3244 to 1.3279, but ran into some pretty solid offers, possibly of semi-official flavour as well as some medium size fund selling, before drifting back to 1.3250 USD/CHF challenged the 0.9050 level, which reportedly held SNB bids but failed to really break significantly lower touching 0.9045 before  the EUR/USD fell back and the USD/CHF rose back to  0.9070. EUR/CHF was static in a 1.2011/15 range. GBP/USD was steady through 1.6193-32, but got a kick lower from the poor PMI data, although the reading was hardly  unexpected following poor recent PMI data elsewhere in Europe and currently sits around  1.6200 which holds an option expiry today. USD/JPY was pushed down to 79.64 largely on AUD/JPY weight, but has found some reasonable support since with a rally to 79.89 Little else to report really with the FTSE up marginally around 0.25%,Gold off around $6 and WTI Crude down by around 50 cents