Eurozone economic confidence weakened more-than-expected in August to its lowest level in eight months, underscoring rising pessimism amid heightened geopolitical tensions and stagnating economic recovery.
The economic confidence index fell to 100.6 in August, the lowest score since December, from 102.1 in July, the European Commission said Thursday. The indicator was forecast to drop moderately to 101.5.
Worsened sentiment resulted from deterioration in retail trade, consumer, industry, and services confidence.
The industrial sentiment indicator declined to -5.3 in August from -3.8 in July. The expected score was -4.5. Weakened industry confidence was caused by managers' more careful views on expected production, while assessments of the current level of overall order books and the stocks of finished products stayed broadly unchanged.
The indicator for services came in at 3.1, down from 3.6 last month. Services confidence slid somewhat owing to downward revisions of managers' assessments of the past business situation and past demand, while their demand expectations remained virtually unchanged.
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