"In the near term, the Fed and global central banks have provided the thing everyone needed, and that's cash, " Martin Blum, head of emerging markets research at UniCredit in Vienna, told Reuters.

FORBES: Super Ben!

"Today's outcome suggests that manufacturing output broadly stabilised in the first quarter, although sectoral surveys remain weak and do not yet point to a recovery, " a research note from UniCredit said.

BBC: Spanish factory