(News Bulletin 247) – European stock markets are moving forward (+0.8% in London, +0.4% in Frankfurt and Paris) despite worrying signals for economic activity in the region given the composite flash PMI indices released in the morning.
That of the euro zone thus fell from 48.6 in July to 47 in August, i.e. its lowest level since April 2013 outside the pandemic months, and thus reflects a third consecutive month of contraction for the private sector of The area.
‘The services index, the most reliable economic barometer in the euro zone, fell for the fourth consecutive time’, points out Commerzbank, for whom ‘the ECB’s hopes of an economic recovery in the second half have received a new blow hard’.
‘We expect the ECB to take a break in September, but it is not clear that inflation is where it wants it to be. A break should not be misinterpreted as the peak,’ warns Deutsche Bank.
Similarly, the UK’s composite PMI index fell from 50.8 in July to 47.9 this month, thus falling back below the 50 point threshold indicative of a contraction in activity and reaching its most low level in more than two and a half years.
In the news of the values, Agfa-Gevaert unscrewed by more than 5% in Brussels, the group of imaging solutions having announced a widened net loss for the first six months of 2023, with revenues slightly down excluding currency effects.
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