Eurozone economic sentiment sees recovery extend in August
- August final consumer confidence -15.5 vs -15.5 prelim
- Prior -15.9
- August economic confidence 98.4 vs 97.5 expected
- Prior 96.9; revised to 97.1
- August industrial confidence -5.3 vs -5.2 expected
- Prior -6.1
- August services confidence 5.8 vs 4.9 expected
- Prior 4.7; revised to 5.1
The recovery continues for euro area economic sentiment at the tail end of the summer, bolstered by better confidence levels in both manufacturing and services. That is some good news at least despite it still being a testing time for major economies in the region, that especially in the battle against inflation.
In that lieu, there is a bit of a warning indicator from the latest price data accompanying the survey report here. Of note, consumer inflation expectations have picked up again to 33.0 from 30.4 previously. It is the first time since April that the indicator has moved higher.
However, at least selling price expectations continue to fall in dropping to 16.4 – down from 17.8 previously.
In any case, the ECB is already well expected to raise key interest rates again in September. That as the central bank has to position itself better in case it needs to tighten policy by much more in order to deal with more stubborn inflation pressures heading into the turn of the year.
And as the US-Iran conflict drags on for longer, the odds of that are only increasing day by day.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.