Situation not as bad as it looks? – Rabobank

A slew of (significantly) weaker-than-expected PMI surveys in the Eurozone in the past two months has injected fresh uncertainty about the strength of the economic recovery, Rabobank’s economists Elwin de Groot and Maartje Wijffelaars note.

Uncertainty creeping in again in the Eurozone

“The services sector seems to be ‘catching down’ to the struggling industrial sector. Is industrial weakness spilling over or is the services sector facing challenges of its own?”

“Our analysis does not point towards negative spillover effects from industry to services, but to underlying weakness in consumer demand. Although near-term risks to growth appear to be to the downside, we retain a (mildly) optimistic outlook on consumer demand.”