BERLIN: Euro zone sentiment improved for a third consecutive month in November as the European Central Bank's offer to buy unlimited amounts of debt to reduce indebted countries' borrowing costs continued to cheer investors. Sentix research group said on Monday its index tracking investor sentiment in the euro zone firmed to -18.8 from October's -22.2 and also outperformed a Reuters poll consensus for -20.0. A sub-index of current euro zone sentiment rose to -31.3 from -34.5 while the expectations component strengthened for a fourth straight month to -5.5 from -9.0. Sentix said an improvement in institutional investors' expectations was particularly noteworthy. "The absence of fresh negative news in the euro zone crisis may have boosted investors' confidence," Sentix said, adding that ECB president Mario Draghi's announcement of the bank's bond-buying programme in the summer continued to help sentiment. A separate index for Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, showed sentiment jumping to 9.4 from 6.4 last month, underpinned by the continued strength of its exports and increased optimism about the prospects for the world's biggest economies, the United States and China. Both German institutional and private investors were more optimistic than in the previous month, Sentix said. US elections due on Tuesday and a looming change of China's top political leadership have boosted investors' hopes that both countries can start getting to grips with some of their outstanding problems, Sentix said. Its investor sentiment index for the United States leapt to 5.0 in November from -1.5 last month and its index for Asia excluding Japan rose to 21.9 from 13.2. The index for Japan improved to -11.7 from -13.5.

Source