European economic activity - what's the latest
Consumer confidence
Industrial Production
Export Growth
Insights
CONCEPTS
Consumer Confidence measures financial optimism to predict future consumer spending habits (spending expectation). Retail Sales is the hard data reporting tangible consumer demand: it tracks actual spending, providing a pulse on economic strength (spending reality). Industrial Production is a broad measure of economic output tracking the combined strength of manufacturing, mining, utilities, and construction (the production engine): . Export Growth tracks foreign demand for domestic goods, acting as the ultimate gauge of a nation's international competitiveness (the global footprint).
CURRENT READINGS
- Consumer confidence in Europe is at -19.4 points (Low), while Retail Sales are growing at 3.4% (Strong). Industrial production is running at 98.9 (Neutral level), declining since last month (continuing its negative quarterly trend). Export growth is running at 0.6%, up by 1.1%
- In summary, a pessimistic but resilient consumer continues to drive retail spending, supporting a robust industrial sector and keeping the broader economy expanding.
MECHANICS & MEANING
Elevated consumer sentiment typically fuels robust spending and drives economic expansion while collapsing confidence triggers defensive saving, a behavior that can cause the economy to slow-down. When resilient spending takes place despite low confidence, it signals a pessimistic but well-capitalized consumer. Industrial production help us prove if soft sentiment data is translating into hard corporate revenue. Surging output drives capital expenditure, hiring and earnings, acting as a major tailwind for equities. Rising exports indicate strong foreign demand that injects external capital into the domestic economy, driving outperformance in globally exposed equities. The opposite is true with fading retail spending, industrial production and exports.