Italian consumer sentiment rebounds in January, business confidence index eases

Italian consumer sentiment rebounded in the month of January. Istat showed that the consumer confidence index rose to 114 from prior month’s 113.2. All the components improved. The economic index rose to 130.8, while the personal one rose to 108.9. The current and the future indices rose to 112.4 and 117.4, respectively.

Meanwhile, the business sentiment surveys showed that the composite business sentiment climate index softened in the month, with the index fall to 99.2 from 99.7. The sentiment index in manufacturing deteriorated to 102.1. Assessments on order books and production expectations fell. With regard to the assessments on inventories, the comparative balance changed to 5.1.

The construction confidence index rose to 139.2 from 130.3. Assessments on order books/construction plans fell to -21.3 while employment expectations, on the contrary, rebounded to 5.3.

The market services sentiment index dropped to 98.6. The balances concerning both assessments on order books and on business trend changed for the worse and the expectations on order books rebounded a bit.

The retail trade sentiment index fell to 102.8. Both the assessments on current sales and the expectations on the future ones dropped while the balance concerning the assessments on volume of stocks stayed substantially stable. The sentiment index in the large scale distribution and the one in the small and medium scale deteriorated passing to 104.7, the first and from 101.1 to 100.1, the second.

At 17:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Euro was neutral at 12.3796, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at -1.64763 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex