EU : Eurozone economic sentiment slides in July

Business and consumer confidence in Europe slid in July, with Germany suffering the biggest fall as the eurozone debt crisis threatened Spain, the European Union said on Monday. The Economic Sentiment Indicator produced by the European Commission fell to 87.9 points across the eurozone, down about two points on the previous month, the data showed. That marked a fourth consecutive monthly fall and London-based analyst Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said a 35-month low for the headline figure, taken together with weak survey data from purchasing managers, indicated "further clear GDP contraction" for the third quarter of the year. Confidence fell across industry and in households, although the retail sector suffered less with a drop of 0.6 points. Germany posted the biggest fall at 3.7 points with France also on the slide but Italy bucked the trend, showing a rise in confidence of 1.3 points.