Amidst contrasting trends, consumer confidence rises, while the business and manufacturing sectors face headwinds. The business confidence index weakened in June, with the index decreasing slightly from 95.1 to 94.5. The consumer confidence index has increased from 96.4 to 98.3, indicating that consumer spirits are buoyant and prepared to spend.

Nevertheless, the manufacturing sector is currently experiencing more challenging conditions. The manufacturing confidence climate has decreased from 88.2 to 86.8, which is attributed to tempered production expectations and diminishing order books. These balances have shifted from 1.4 to 1.3, and minus 19.7 to minus 23.3, respectively. On a more optimistic note, inventory levels are increasing, with the balance improving from 1.8 to 2.5. This indicates that businesses are stockpiling up, potentially in anticipation of future demand.

Today's update is consistent with a particularly weak manufacturing sector and sluggish growth.

The Italian statistics office (Istat) conducts business and consumer confidence surveys over the first fifteen and ten working days of each reference month respectively. These provide information about current and expected developments in key sector variables. The largely qualitative results are synthesized for each survey into a single number that provides an overall measure of sentiment. Business confidence reflects the combined results of separate surveys covering manufacturing, retail, construction and services.

If investors want to know how the business or consumer sectors are performing as they evaluate their investment decisions, they can find timely and in depth information in the latest Istat surveys. Although short-term swings can be erratic, changes in trends in confidence can contain very useful information about a sector’s underlying health well in advance of the release of the official data. Moreover, by including some forward-looking components (e.g. manufacturing orders or consumer buying intentions) the Istat surveys can also provide a potential insight into prospective developments.