Eurozone sentiment slowly sours yet to reflect political chaos

One of the reason is that the survey period is before the recent turmoil, but even then no prior reflection of the looming turmoil or the ongoing political struggle in Italy and Spain.

By many measures, sentiment across the European continent is holding high.

However, services sector and consumer confidence have been suggesting a steady slowdown.

• The European Commission’s monthly measure of economic confidence nudged down by 0.2 points to 112.5 in May – it’s down from its peak of 114.6 in January this year.

• Industrial confidence down to 6.8 in May from its 9.1 peak in January.

• Services confidence down to 14.3, from its January peak of 18.4.

• Business climate index ticked higher to 1.45 in May, but down from its December peak of 1.66.

• Consumer confidence declined 0.2 in May, down from January peak of 1.3

Despite the drop across the board, all indices are hovering at multi-year high, which doesn’t reflect the extent of political chaos in the Eurozone and in the European Union.

Expect all indices to dive sharply in the next survey thanks to the current crisis.