Euro-area economic confidence falls to lowest in 13 months

Warsaw

EURO-AREA economic confidence fell to the lowest level in more than a year just as the European Central Bank deployed fresh stimulus to spur growth and quash the threat of deflation.

An index of executive and consumer confidence slumped for a third month, declining to 103.0 in March from a revised 103.9 the previous month, the European Commission in Brussels said on Wednesday. That's the weakest since February 2015 and compares with a median estimate for a reading of 103.8 in a Bloomberg survey of economists.