Swiss economic sentiment improves in July: ZEW

Switzerland's economic confidence improved slightly in July after staying stable in the previous month, a monthly survey by the Centre for European Economic Research in cooperation with Credit Suisse showed Wednesday.

The ZEW-CS Indicator of economic expectations advanced to 4.8 points in July from 2.2 points in June. The indicator, which reflects expectations of surveyed financial market experts regarding economic development in Switzerland on a six-month time horizon, has now remained at a broadly stable level for the last three months.

In July, a higher number of analysts said they expect economic conditions to remain unchanged in the next six months. Their share increased by 8.4 percentage points month-on-month to 71.4 percent in July.

At the same time, the indicator of experts' views of the current economic situation improved notably in July, by 4.5 points from the previous month to 26.2 points.

Meanwhile, experts' views of the current economic situation in the euro area turned more pessimistic, with the share of pessimists increasing by 4.9 percentage points from the previous month to 80.5 percent in July. The survey further indicated that expectations for the stock markets in Switzerland, Europe and the US were positive in July, with the respective indicators hovering well above their long-term averages.