Euro area developments The moderation in euro-area sentiment resulted from decreases in services and retail trade confidence, while confidence in industry, construction and among consumers remained broadly stable at high levels. Amongst the largest euro-area economies, the ESI rose strongly in France (+1.5) and slightly in Spain (+0.5), while it decreased in Italy (-0.9) and, more markedly, in Germany (-1.5) and the Netherlands (-2.1).
Broadly stable developments in industry confidence (+0.2) resulted from managers’ more optimistic production expectations and improved assessments of current levels of overall order books being partly offset by worsened appraisals of the stocks of finished products. Of the questions not included in the confidence indicator, managers’ assessment of past production worsened markedly, while their views on export order books improved slightly. Declining services confidence (-1.2) resulted from a worsening of all three components, i.e. managers’ assessment of past demand, the past business situation and demand expectations. Robust consumer confidence (+0.3) reflected consumers’ broadly unchanged savings expectations and views on their future financial situation, while their assessment of the future general economic situation and future unemployment turned more positive.
The decrease in retail trade confidence (-1.1) was caused by managers’ lower appraisal of both the present and the expected business situation; their assessment of the adequacy of the volume of stocks remained broadly unchanged. Robust construction confidence (+0.3) resulted from a strong upward revision in managers’ employment expectations being partly offset by a marked decrease of their assessment of the level of order books. Finally, the drop (-0.9) in financial services confidence (not included in the ESI) resulted from worsened appraisals of all questions entering the indicator, i.e. managers’ assessment of the past business situation, past demand and expected demand
