Eurozone economic sentiment falls for sixth straight month

Business and consumer sentiment about the economy fell slightly in the Eurozone this month, according to statistics released by the European Commission on Monday.

The closely watched Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) fell by 0.1 points to 93.3 for October, from a revised 93.4 in September.

This was in line with the consensus estimate but still marked the sixth straight monthly fall in the ESI.

The European Commission said that higher confidence in the services sectors was offset by lower confidence in retail trade, while views about industry, construction and among consumers remained broadly unchanged.

The press release said: "Amongst the largest EU economies, the ESI improved in Poland (+1.4), Spain (+1.2) and Germany (+0.5). By contrast, sentiment deteriorated markedly in France (-2.9) and, to a lesser extent, Italy (-0.9)."

Commenting on the data, analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "The business survey—the last of the lot to be published—solidifies the message from other survey data that weakness in EZ private sector activity in Q3 will spill over into Q4, and so that the risks to our call for GDP to rebound are to the downside.

"We already knew that consumer confidence deteriorated. Today we learnt that the picture in business sentiment, meanwhile, was mixed."

Meanwhile the Employment Expectations Indicator (EEI) for the Eurozone fell 0.1 points to 102.8, but still remained above its long-term average of 100.

"Lower employment plans among industry and retail trade managers were largely offset by managers’ improved employment plans in services and construction," the European Commission saiid.