Spain Consumer Confidence January 2007

Spain's Instituto de Credito Oficial today published the results of the January consumer confidence survey. The only real surprise was the fact that it took about a week longer than usual to appear on the Insitute's website (the pre-election atmosphere I imagine). As was to be anticipated, the index was down for the eighth month in a row, to yet another historic minimum, although it should be noted that this months decline was less dramatic than in previous months - only 1.4 points from 72.3 to 70.9 - since the expectations component rebounded slightly. Possibly consumers feel slightly better times are coming, although what the basis for such an improvement in expectations could be at this point is far from clear.




We also have the January results of the EU commission European Confidence Index. As can be seen in the chart, while there is some rebound in Ireland (the decline in previous months had been very steep), Spain continues its downward trajectory.




Also the general movement in the index across eurozone countries is also clearly downwards.