Economic sentiment was again little changed in November. At 93.8, the headline index was up just 0.3 points versus a marginally firmer revised October print and in line with the market consensus, left well below its 100 long-run average.

At a sector level, performances were generally a little less weak. Confidence worsened slightly in industry (minus 9.5 after minus 9.2) but improved in retail trade (minus 7.0 after minus 7.4), services (4.9 after 4.6), construction (minus 4.8 after minus 5.5) and in the household sector (minus 16.9 after minus 17.8).

Regionally among the big four member states, the national ESI fell in Germany (89.1 after 89.6), Italy (96.5 after 96.8) and Spain (98.8 after 100.3) but rose in France (96.1 after 94.1). Accordingly, all four were short of the common 100 long-run average.

In terms of inflation developments, expected selling prices again rose in services (17.6 after 15.8), hitting a 6-month high, but fell in manufacturing (2.3 after 3.5) to a 3-year low. Household inflation expectations (9.3 after 11.3) also dipped to a 3-month trough.

Today's update probably leaves Eurozone GDP on course for a second successive contraction in the fourth quarter, implying technical recession. However, any fall in total output still looks likely to be relatively small and with the region's RPI and RPI-P both at minus 4, overall economic activity is performing much as expected. Still, with inflation signals in the key service sector moving in the wrong direction, the ECB will remain in no hurry to cut interest rates.

Economic sentiment in November is expected to rise to 93.8 from 93.3 in October which extended a long, weak run.

Released by the European Commission, the economic sentiment index (ESI) provides a broad measure of both business and consumer sentiment. Results are available for all participating countries and aggregated to the Eurozone and European Union level. The survey is very detailed and offers information on demand, output and inflation.

The survey offers key sentiment data across the European Union and the Eurozone region. Data are available for each country and are aggregated for both the Eurozone and EU. It is conducted by the European Commission rather than Eurostat, the compiler of most other EMU data. The index is a broad measure of both business and consumer sentiment in the EU members. Because of its coverage of all the EU countries it is highly regarded in the financial markets as a good indicator of the mood of consumers and industry in each country. It is also normally a good indicator of quarterly GDP.

Confidence indicators are calculated for industry, services, construction, retail trade and consumers. In turn, they are combined into an overall composite number, the economic sentiment indicator (ESI). The data are seasonally adjusted and defined as the difference (in percentage points of total answers) between positive and negative answers. The survey also covers other areas of the economy that are not explicitly included in the ESI. In particular, responses to questions about the inflation outlook are used by the ECB as one means of measuring inflationary expectations.