Consumer and Business Confidence Figures from Member States Deliver EUR Support

Following a string of stats from Germany, French consumer and Italian business and consumer confidence figures were in focus this morning.

French Consumer Confidence

In November, French Consumer Confidence held steady at 99 versus a forecasted decline to 98. The numbers were steady in spite of a marked deterioration in confidence in Germany and across the euro bloc.

According to insee.fr,

• Households’ opinions related to their past financial situation has decreased by 3-points.
• Also in decline was households’ opinion in relation to their future personal financial situation, which slipped by 1 point.
• Households’ opinion related to their future saving capacity bounced by 10 points, however, returning to its September level.
• With regards to the households’ opinion balance about the opportunity to save, the balance remained stable as did the one relative to their current saving capacity.
• Positive was a fall in unemployment fears, which declined by 6 points.
• By contrast, the share of households considering that prices were on the rise during the past 12-months rose by 9 points to its highest level since 2012.

Interestingly, households considering that prices will be on the rise during the next 12-months fell by 13 points.

Italian Business and Consumer Confidence

While French consumer confidence held steady, consumer confidence in Italy weakened slightly from 118.4 to 117.5. By contrast, however, business confidence picked up from 115.1 to 116.0.

Market Impact

Ahead of today’s stats, the EUR had fallen to a pre-stat and current day low $1.12061 before finding support.

In response today’s stats, the EUR rose to a post-release and current day high $1.12790.

At the time of writing, the EUR was up by 0.50% to $1.12651.

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ECB member Panetta speaks.