Euro zone ZEW survey for economic sentiment declines

The euro zone's ZEW survey, regarding economic sentiment, slipped after rising lately; this meant that European confidence was still shaky, despite latest measures taken by the government and European Central Bank (ECB).

The ZEW survey for November fell to 51.8, which is worse than the prior 56.0 and the expected 55.0. As confidence remains unstable, it gives evidence that the worst of this global recession is not over yet, despite ECB officials last week stating that they are going to start planning measures for exiting the stimulus plan.

The euro zone is still under stress as they deal with unemployment rates at 9.7%, and this continues to stab consumers' confidence, while expectations for labor market are dark, which is  negatively impacting confidence in markets, because the fragile job sector having consumers believing that they might be laid off any day.

Also released today from Germany, the biggest nation in the euro zone, was the ZEW survey regarding economic sentiment for November at 51.1 a drop from the previous 56.9, while markets were expecting the index to rise to 58.0. However, the same survey but regarding the current situation for the same time period, improved to -65.6 from -72.2 which is better than the projected -70.0.

As the economic sentiment weakened; the current situation improved, as consumer are bright about the current scenario, since economic data lately has been showing bright signs due to  officials exhausting their measures as they continue to seek solutions to improve economic growth.

We can not currently say that there will be economic growth this year in the euro zone, yet, we can say that improvement as been taking place as a result of the ECB buying governmental bonds worth 60 billion euros to revive economic growth.

There are still major obstacles weighing on the outlook of the euro zone, like high unemployment rates, which will take some time to lower alongside the instable financial system that was the core problem of the downfall of the euro zone.

Turning to the European stock markets, we see that as of 10:18 GMT; the DJ Euro Stoxx 50 dipped 0.31 points or 0.01% to 2,859.80 points; CAC 40 fell 1.07 points or 0.03% to 3,784.42 points; while the DAX 30 rose 3.57 points or 0.06% to 5,623.29 points.