- Prior -12.4
- Economic confidence 98.3 vs 99.8 expected
- Prior 99.4; revised to 99.3
- Industrial confidence -7.1 vs -6.1 expected
- Prior -6.8
- Services confidence 5.0 vs 7.5 expected
- Prior 7.2
Slight delay in the release by the source. Euro area economic sentiment drops slightly in February, keeping below the long-term average score of 100 still. The recovery is dashed as employment expectations also declined on the month, with a drop in both industrial and services confidence as well.
On the employment estimate, the decline (-0.7 to 98.5) was driven by weaker employment plans reported by managers in the services
and construction sectors, which were only marginally countered by a slight improvement reported in retail trade.
Here’s the breakdown by sectorial performance in the region:
The report here isn’t going to change much to the ECB outlook. As mentioned earlier in the session, the central bank remains sidelined at the moment with no material shifts to policy expectations still. Policymakers are waiting for a major change in the wind direction on either the economic performance or the inflation front. And so far, we’re not quite there yet.
As things stand, markets are also not really expecting anything from the ECB. Traders are currently pricing in no rate changes whatsoever through the end of the year.
