| Actual | Previous | Revised | Consensus | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business Confidence | 95.3 | 93.1 | 93.2 | |
| Manufacturing Confidence | 85.8 | 86.5 | 86.0 | |
| Consumer Confidence | 96.3 | 96.6 | 96.6 | 97.0 |
Highlights
Overall business confidence rose in December. At 95.3, the Istat gauge was up from the revised 93.2 in November, itself the lowest level to date in 2024.
However, the rebound was not mirrored in manufacturing where confidence fell to 85.8, down from November's 86.5, and matching October's 2024 low and a couple of ticks short of forecasts. This reflects ongoing concerns about future levels of production. Meantime, sentiment in retail trade was little changed (from 106.8 to 106.9) but services improved (from 93.9 to 99.6) due to strong optimism about the current business trend and the order book volume. Construction worsened for the second time in a row (from 101.5 to 100.9) with expectations for future employment in particular declining.
Consumer confidence worsened, unexpectedly falling from 96.6 to 96.3 mainly due to weakness in the current and expected economic situation.
In summary, the report potentially points to shrinking manufacturing and consumer activity. It also reduces the Italian RPI to minus 7 and the RPI-P to minus 25, showing economic activity in general falling short of market expectations.
However, the rebound was not mirrored in manufacturing where confidence fell to 85.8, down from November's 86.5, and matching October's 2024 low and a couple of ticks short of forecasts. This reflects ongoing concerns about future levels of production. Meantime, sentiment in retail trade was little changed (from 106.8 to 106.9) but services improved (from 93.9 to 99.6) due to strong optimism about the current business trend and the order book volume. Construction worsened for the second time in a row (from 101.5 to 100.9) with expectations for future employment in particular declining.
Consumer confidence worsened, unexpectedly falling from 96.6 to 96.3 mainly due to weakness in the current and expected economic situation.
In summary, the report potentially points to shrinking manufacturing and consumer activity. It also reduces the Italian RPI to minus 7 and the RPI-P to minus 25, showing economic activity in general falling short of market expectations.
Market Consensus Before Announcement
Manufacturing confidence is seen little changed at 86.0 and its consumer counterpart similarly almost flat at 97.0
Definition
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.
Description
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.
