EU Kommissionen skriver om forbrugertilliden:
In the euro area, lower readings of retail trade and consumer confidence were only partly offset by positive signals from the construction sector. Industry and services confidence remained virtually unchanged. Amongst the largest euro-area economies, sentiment increased only in Spain (+0.5), while it remained broadly flat in the Netherlands (+0.3), France (+0.2) and Germany (-0.3) and shed in Italy (-0.9). The virtually flat development in industry confidence (-0.2) resulted from managers’ improved production expectations being counter-balanced by grimmer views on the stocks of finished products and the current level of overall order books. The assessments of the level of export order books and past production, which do not enter the calculation of the confidence indicator, worsened significantly. The broadly unchanged reading of services confidence compared to the previous month (+0.1) was due to improved demand expectations being outweighed by managers’ more negative stance on past demand and unchanged appraisals of the past business situation. Consumer confidence booked the fourth month-on-month decline in a row (-1.4) propelled by consumers’ increased pessimism about future unemployment, the future general economic situation and, less so, the level of future savings. Consumers’ expected financial situation remained unchanged. The sharp drop in retail trade confidence (-2.6) owed to more negative assessments of all components of the indicator, namely the expected and present business situation, as well as the adequacy of the volume of stocks. Construction confidence brightened (+0.7) as a consequence of significantly improved assessments of the level of order books in combination with broadly unchanged employment expectations. Dropping by 1.9 points, financial services confidence (not included in the ESI) continued the broad downward trend observed over the last 3 months. Clearly less positive appraisals of the past business situation and past demand were mitigated somewhat by broadly unchanged demand expectations.
