Eurozone sentiment reaches news decade high

By many measures, sentiment across the European continent has jumped to their highest level I more than a decade as the political risk diminishes after Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French election, earlier this year and as data points to a strengthening of recovery across Europe. For example, Spanish economy posted best quarterly growth since 2014, while yearly growth touched the highest level since 2011. The unemployment rate also declined to the lowest level in 8 years.

Sentiment across Europe declined sharply in August, in the wake of the referendum outcome but as the UK and the European economy performed much better than all the doom and gloom predictions, sentiment has soared.

• The European Commission’s monthly measure of economic confidence nudged up 0.1 points to 111.2 in July – its best level since before the financial crisis hit in 2007. The gauge was driven higher by a bump in confidence in Germany and the Netherlands, but fell back in Italy, France and Spain.

• Industrial confidence surprisingly improved to 4.5, again best level in years. Services confidence improved to 14.1, slightly lower than April’s peak at 14.2.

• Business climate index came at 1.05, slightly lower than last month’s peak at 1.15.

• The only and major drag is the consumer confidence, which continues to hover at -1.7.

The euro is currently hovering at 1.171 against the dollar.