Italian consumer and business confidence indices fall in August

The Italian consumer confidence index dropped in the month of August. The index fell to 115.2 from prior month’s 116.2, showed Italian official statistics office, Istat. The economic, current and future components deteriorated. The economic index dropped to 136.6, the current index fell to 112.8, while the future index dropped to 119.3. Meanwhile, the personal component rebounded to 108.5 from 107.8. The balance concerning expectations on unemployment rose to 24.1 from 12.9. The balance on inflation perceptions referring to the past 12 months fell to -5.6 from -3.8 while the balance on inflation expectations rebounded to -14.8.

Looking at business surveys, the composite business confidence climate index fell to 103.8 from 105.3. The sentiment index in manufacturing fell to 104.8 from 106.7. Assessments on order books and production expectations deteriorated to -9.8 and 12.5, respectively. The balance on inventories rose to 3.8.

Construction confidence index dropped to 139.3 from 139.3. Assessments on order books/construction plans fell to -17.6, while employment expectations rebounded to 1.7.

Meanwhile, the market services sentiment index dropped to 104.7. Both the expectations on order books and the assessments on business trend deteriorated to 6.2 and 9.5, respectively. The assessments on order books rebounded to 9.9.

On the other hand, retail trade sentiment index rebounded to 104.2 from 102.7. The assessments on current sales rose and the expectations on future sales dropped. The balance concerning the assessments on volume of stocks fell to 12.1. The index rebounded to 106.3 from 101.9 in the large scale distribution while the small and medium scale distribution index worsened to 95.1.

At 14:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Euro was highly bullish at 147.328, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was highly bearish at -138.845. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex