Euro zone orders tumble by most in almost 3 years

Euro zone orders tumble by most in almost 3 years
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone industrial new orders slumped in September, the EU said on Wednesday, the deepest fall since December 2008 and far worse than economists had forecast, in the latest sign that Europe may be heading for a recession. Orders in the 17 countries sharing the euro tumbled 6.4 percent in the month compared to August, well below expectations of a 2.5 percent fall, with Germany and France registering sharp contractions, the EU’s Statistics Office Eurostat said. “The scale of the deterioration is surprising,” said Clemente de Lucia, an economist at BNP Paribas. …