France’s business morale rebounds in August

France’s business confidence has improved in August, the latest data by INSEE showed.

The gauge of business morale came in at a reading of 98.8 in August, while rebounding from a 3 1/2-year low of 95.4 in July.

Still, the indicator remained below its long-term average level of 100.0.

In August, businesses were less pessimistic about overall order books (-16 up from -20 in July), foreign order books (-8 up from -19 in July) and the general production outlook (-13 up from -18 in July).

Also, companies’ assessments became positive for personal production (8 up from -5 in July).

Conversely, sentiment was less optimistic about stocks of finished products (4 down from 9 in July), expected changes in workforce (1 down from 2 in July) and the expected trend in selling prices (2 down from 7 in July).

The EUR/GBP currency pair settled 0.32% lower at 0.8459 on Friday. For the week, the minor currency pair went down 0.61% to mark its steepest weekly decline since early July.