Eurozone Economic Confidence Rises In November

(RTTNews) - Eurozone economic sentiment rose in November as higher confidence in services, retail trade and construction was partially offset by the weakness in industry, monthly survey data from the European Commission showed on Thursday.

The economic sentiment index climbed to 97.0 in November, as expected, from 96.8 in October. This was the third consecutive increase.

Industry confidence declined to -9.3 from -8.5 in October due to managers' worsened production expectations and assessments of the current level of overall order book. Services confidence rose markedly to 5.7 from 4.2 in the previous month, thanks to a broad-based improvement in the assessment of all three components.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence remained unchanged at -14.2 in November, in line with the flash estimate.

Retail trade confidence improved to -5.7 from -6.9 on the back of retailers' significantly better assessment of the past business situation, only partly offset by deteriorated expectations about the future business situation.

Construction confidence rose to -1.7 from -2.5, reflecting significantly brighter employment expectations, while managers' appraisals of the level of order books remained relatively stable.

Further, the survey showed that the employment expectations indicator improved in November, primarily due to more optimistic employment plans among construction and retail trade managers.

Selling price expectations also picked up in November driven by all four business sectors.