Consumers lose confidence
Consumer confidence in Switzerland has fallen for the first time in 18 months.
However, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) said the current decline was relatively modest.
A survey published on Thursday showed the quarterly Swiss consumer sentiment index dropped by six points between April and July to -15 points.
Seco economists said that the assessment of the economic climate of the past 12 months contributed to the decrease.
“Despite the slight decline, consumer confidence is still with the region of the long-term average,” they added in a statement.
The index is compiled from a survey of more than 1,000 households.
Analyst Astrid Frey from Bank Sarasin warned not to read too much into the survey.
“We had expected a decline given the stagnating labour market data. But this index has very little predicting power and one ought to look at retail sales and real consumption data instead,” she said.
She added that the leading indicators showed that from the fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product growth rates should pick up again.
swissinfo with agencies
Consumer confidence dropped from –9 to –15 between April and July.
The index is based a survey from 1,100 households.
Seco publishes these index figures on a quarterly basis.
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