Euro area business activity grew in July at the fastest rate in eight months, and the economist who publishes the survey says the conditions behind it have already gone

The euro area grew again in July, on the strength of a month that has since ended.

The S&P Global composite output index for the currency bloc rose to 52.0 from 50.0 in June, according to the final survey published at 10:00 in Frankfurt on Wednesday. That is the highest reading in eight months and the first signal of expansion since March. The services business activity index did most of the lifting, rising to 51.7 from 49.4 and ending three months of contraction.

Responses were collected between 9 and 28 July.

That date range is the whole story. Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, wrote in the release that the improvement came on the tailwind of June's lower oil prices and easing tensions in the Middle East, and that the conflict has since flared up again. His summary of where that leaves the survey: "we are seeing renewed downside risks to growth and upside risks to already-elevated inflation."

Germany moved, France did not

Growth was broad by country as well as by sector, with one exception.

German private sector output rose for the first time since March. Italy and Spain both accelerated, and Spain recorded its strongest expansion in just over eighteen months. France kept contracting, more slowly than before, and was the only large member of the bloc going backwards.

New orders across the euro area rose for the first time since February. Export business was still falling, although the rate of decline was the softest in just over a year, which the release attributes to domestic demand rather than to any recovery abroad.

Employment stabilised in July after six consecutive months of net job losses. Backlogs of work were run down again, a trend now more than three years old.

The price panel cooled, from an elevated base

Input costs rose sharply, and the pace of that increase fell to a five-month low. Firms raised their own prices by the smallest margin since March.

Neither number is low. The release notes that output price inflation remained elevated when set against the survey's own long-run average, which is the qualifier that distinguishes a slower increase from a small one.

Business expectations for the year ahead improved for a third month running. They remain below where they stood in February, immediately before the Middle East war began.

What the survey is signalling for the quarter

Williamson put the headline index at a rate consistent with quarterly GDP growth of 0.3 percent, and said the July reading reflected an increasingly broad-based upturn. He also said the drop in the survey's price gauges could give policymakers room to delay further rate increases until the inflation outlook is clearer.

The reading is built on answers given across twenty days in the middle of July. Everything since has happened outside the window.