fresh pmi data came in below expectations and pointed to an economic slowdown business activity growth in europe slowed in june pointing to a difficult end to the second quarter according to preliminary data friday the euro zones flash composite purchasing managers index dropped to 503 in june from 528 the previous month this was below the 525 expected by analysts a reading above 50 marks an expansion in activity while one below 50 marks a contraction eurozone business output growth came close to stalling in june according to the latest hcob flash pmi survey data produced by sp global pointing to renewed weakness in the economy after the brief growth revival recorded in the spring sp global said in a release although energy and supply chain worries have eased since late last year june has seen a further escalation of concerns over demand growth and in particular the impact of higher interest rates and the resulting possibilities of recessions both in domestic markets and further afield earlier data from germany also showed a slowdown in europes largest economy the german flash composite pmis fell to 508 in june from 539 in may this was below market expectations it was a similar story in france where the composite pmi sunk to 473 from 512 in may well below the 51 expected euro zone bond yields dropped following the german and french data releases an economic slowdown tends to be negative for bond yields the yield on the 2year german bund dropped 65 basis points to 321 this is a breaking news story and it is being updated