Families with confidence to the highest level since August 2000 – Jornal de Negócios – Portugal

The institute of statistical adds other reasons that also contributed to this recovery of the indicator, though to a lesser degree. Are they the estimates of the evolution of the financial situation of the household and savings.

as for the economic climate indicator, the INE noted a decrease between October and December, “after having risen in the previous two months”.

however, the behavior of entrepreneurs is not uniform between the various sectors observed. “In the month of reference, the indicator decreased trust in the construction and public works, and commerce, having increased in manufacturing and in services”.

where is the optimism of the families?

The data released on Tuesday by the INE show that there are two main factors for the improvement of the confidence of the families. A refers to the belief that consumers have about the economic situation of the country and another about the perspective that you have for the evolution of unemployment.

These views allow you to see records more favorable in the series from INE. “The balance of the extremes [a method used to evaluate the opinions in the surveys] of the opinions about the evolution of the economic situation of the country has increased significantly in December, extending the upward move that started in September and reaching the maximum value since August 1998″.

This means that the families did not have an opinion so favourable to the evolution of the economy for 18 years and four months. “By that time, the balance of expectations concerning the economic situation in the country has increased in the past four months, most significantly in December,” adds the institute of statistics. This question of the survey allows you to evaluate the opinions of the families about the prospects for the coming months.

Also in the matter of an inquiry into the December to the opinions of consumers improved in the final stint of the year. “The balance of perspectives concerning the evolution of unemployment has declined in the past four months, most significantly in November and December, renewing the minimum value of the series.”

that is, in the last month of last year, consumers had the best opinion since the INE began to make this survey about the prospects of unemployment, in November 1997. A month before (November 2016), the survey had already pointed to a new minimum value in this series.

And the entrepreneurs? How is the confidence?

in This case the answer is not only one. Is that depends on the entrepreneurs we are talking about. While in industry and services, the entrepreneurs closed the year 2016 more optimistic in the case of construction and retail entrepreneurs are more pessimistic.

In the information published on Tuesday, the INE account that the improvement in the indicator of confidence of industrial has already been since June and that in December “all” the answers of these entrepreneurs to the INE survey shows more optimism. This assessment was made on the basis of moving averages of the last three months – an indicator that allows to smooth out erratic behaviors that may result from factors specific. However, the conclusions of the INE leave a warning: “Not considering the moving averages of three months, the indicator of confidence declined slightly in December, reflecting the sharp worsening of expectations of production.” The coming months will be important to understand how to evolve to the opinions of these entrepreneurs on the prospects of production.

In the case of the services sector, the improvement of the confidence of these entrepreneurs are to be motivated by “the positive contribution of the judgements about the evolution of the demand, once opinions about the company’s activity and the evolution of the order book contributed negatively, in a more intense manner in the first case,” explains INE. This improvement allowed, still, to counterbalance the downward trend of the past two months.

In the construction sector, the decrease of the indicator of confidence “was due to the negative contribution of both components, employment prospects and opinions about the portfolio of orders, so tenuous in the second case”. If we look at only the value of the indicator for the month of December, this was increased as a result of better prospects as to the prospects of employment.

The trade sector, closed the year with business confidence falling, even though Christmas. The more traders are pessimistic as to the prospects of activity for the next few months.