Euro-Zone Economic Confidence Drops

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louis vuitton handbags Confidence in the euro zone economy fell a second straight month in April, adding to evidence it won't grow until the second half of the year at best, a survey showed Thursday. The overall economic sentiment indicator for the 17 nations using the euro fell to 92.8 in April, the lowest in over a year from 94.5 in March, European Commission data showed. That's weaker than the 94.2 forecast in a Dow Jones survey of economists last week. There were sharp declines in overall consumer, industrial and services confidence. All forward-looking gauges retreated. It "reinforces our belief that euro-zone gross domestic product is headed for a third quarter of contraction," said Howard Archer, chief euro-zone and U.K. economist for IHS Global Insight said. The euro zone economy contracted 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Eurostat.

louis vuitton handbags outlet Already Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Slovenia are in recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. The region's sovereign debt crisis has brought bailouts from the International Monetary Fund and European Union. Governments have raised taxes and cut spending. There are 17.1 million people without jobs in the euro zone, Eurostat said April 2. That's a record and greater than the population of the Netherlands. Eurostat are expected to confirm a fall in first-quarter euro-zone gross domestic product mid-May. The euro zone economy will shrink 0.3% this year, the European Commission forecast in February. Confidence may not notably revive for the rest of 2012, some analysts said.

louis vuitton handbags "With more austerity in the pipeline, and the debt crisis still unresolved, any significant pick-up in economic confidence in the remainder of this year might fail to occur," said Martin van Vliet, euro zone economist for ING Bank. "If so, this could jeopardise a return a return to modest positive growth later this year." Industrial confidence slumped to -9.0 in April. That was weaker than economists expectations for -7.0 and compares with -7.1 in March, while consumer confidence dropped to -19.9 in April. That was weaker than the forecast for -19.8, and follows -19.1 a month earlier. The details of the two measures also disappointed. Industrial new orders in three months to April slumped, while consumer expectations over spending tumbled and unemployment fears rose.

louis vuitton handbags outlet The commission also published the business climate index which dropped sharply to -0.58 from -0.28. That was also worse than the -0.33 Dow Jones Newsires forecast and was the weakest level since January 2010. It shows economic pain is touching all sectors. The survey also reported a drop in the three largest economies. Italy posted the steepest decline in April with economic sentiment slumping to 83.1 from 88.8 in March. It fell one point to 103.3 in Germany and to 95.2 in France compared with 95.6 the month before. New applications for unemployment benefits last week remained near the highest level in nearly four months, showing that the labor market's recent improvement may be slowing. Initial jobless claims decreased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000 in the week ended April 21, the Labor Department said Thursday. The fall, however, is in comparison to the prior week's upwardly revised level of 389,000--the highest reading since the first week of the year.

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