Italy Consumer Confidence January 2008

Italian consumer confidence fell to the lowest in more than two years in January as accelerating inflation and slowing economic growth fueled consumer pessimism. The Rome-based Isae Institute's index, based on a survey of 2,000 families, fell to 102.2, the lowest since August 2005, from a revised 106.9 last month.



This is not good news, along with the simmering political crisis going on in the background. The following quote is pretty representative of views being expressed, and pretty much to the point I think:

``It's a very strong decline that we definitely did not expect,'' said Chiara Corsa, an economist at UniCredit Markets & Investment Banking in Milan. ``It looks like global economic conditions along with factors linked to sentiment like the fall of stock markets had a decisive impact on confidence.''