Selling Price Expectations

Selling Price Expectations (next 3 months) are a monthly European Commission survey of about 134,000 EU firms and 32,000 consumers. Its programme, the Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys, polls four business sectors plus consumers with a common questionnaire. This page uses only the four EU business lines: manufacturing, services, retail trade, and construction.

Each line is a net balance, the share expecting rises minus the share expecting cuts. It is not actual price change, inflation, a producer price index, or a quantified forecast. It never enters any confidence indicator or the Economic Sentiment Indicator.

Responses are usually collected in the first two to three weeks of each month. Questions cover the three months after the release month. Full results appear by press release two working days before month-end. A flash consumer reading lands about one week earlier, around the 20th, under an annual schedule with no announced time.

Each release also carries confidence gauges, the Economic Sentiment Indicator, employment expectations, and uncertainty, plus detailed tables and free Excel series. Validated errors are corrected promptly.

Seasonally adjusted series are revised fully, while unadjusted data stand except in France. Weights update each January, and cycle reports follow quarterly. Readings compare against their long-term average only.

Read the release as four separate sector lines, since each asks managers about their own prices.

• Manufacturing: Captures factory managers' expected selling-price moves over the next 3 months.
• Services: Captures service firms' expected moves in prices charged over the next 3 months.
• Retail trade: Captures retailers' expected shelf-price moves over the next 3 months.
• Construction: Captures builders' expected prices-charged moves over the next 3 months.

In August 2021 industry scored +35.8 against an average of 5.5 since 2000, and retail scored +27.4 against 6.7, both new highs. Those data were collected from 1 to 24 August 2021, after industry climbed from near 0 to a record within 12 months. Services eased to +11.5 from +12.0 in July 2021, so sectors do not always move together.

In April 2022 business plans hit unprecedented highs in all sectors, while consumer expectations for the next 12 months fell back. Those data were collected from 1 to 24 April 2022. Arabic financial coverage calls the parent survey the Eurozone economic sentiment release, and a balance reads as points, never as a price rise rate.

1. Reply shares: Within each group, answers are counted or weighted by firm size, using turnover, employment, or production. Groups then combine into national shares that sum to 100.
2. National balance: The balance is rises (P) minus cuts (M). With 30% rises, 55% unchanged, and 15% cuts, the balance is +15 points. This rule fits three-option questions, while a weighted 6-option formula fits consumer questions.
3. EU aggregate: Country results combine as weighted averages on value-added shares, smoothed over two years and updated each January. For example, Germany at +20 with weight 0.5, France at +10 with weight 0.3, and the rest at +5 with weight 0.2 give +14.
4. Adjustment and scale: Balances are seasonally adjusted with TRAMO-SEATS software JDemetra+, in use since 1 May 2022 after Dainties. RegARIMA coefficients update each January. The scale runs from -100 to +100, and unadjusted series stay available.
5. Published unit: Figures print as points of total answers. Zero means equal rise and cut shares, positive means more rises, and negative means more cuts.