- Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's upgraded Greece's sovereign credit rating to CCC+ from CCC– and revised the country's outlook from negative to stable. S&P said it believes the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro zone by 2018 has declined to less than 50%, but the risk "is still high", particularly if Athens does not successfully implement the rescue programme. Greek banks opened their doors Tuesday after being closed for three weeks, and the Greek government met a Monday deadline to pay 4.2 billion euros to the European Central Bank and paid off some 2 billion euros in arrears to the International Monetary Fund. Yet, Greece's commitments are likely to remain "unsustainable" in the long term, S&P added.
Meanwhile, consumer spending at Italian retailers declined 0.1% in May on a monthly basis, compared with the 0.7% growth in April. In annual terms, sales revenues rose 0.3% in May after a flat reading in the preceding month. At the same time, confidence in the private sector of France, the Euro zone's second biggest economy, reached the highest level since the crisis in 2011. According to INSEE, the gauge, which measures business sentiment in the manufacturing sector rose to 102 points, up from 100 in May. In the services sector, the indicator climbed by two points to 97, while remained stable in retail trade. The construction industry, however, recorded a decline by one point to 90 in July.
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