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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Affordability Declines Further in June
The NAR Fixed Rate Mortgage Housing Affordability Index fell 3.6% in June...
EMU Output Makes Solid Gain in June
The European Monetary Union posted a 0.7% increase for industrial output in June...
U.S. Producer Prices Fall During July; Core Increase Weakens
The Producer Price Index for Final Demand fell 0.5% during July...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Louise Curley August 28, 2007
The results of the IFO August survey of the opinions of industrialists, wholesalers and retail traders show that while business is slightly more confident about the current situation, it is somewhat less confident about the six month's outlook. Optimist on the outlook exceeded pessimist by 3.3%, down from 5.9% in July. The opinions of the business community, however, are much less pessimistic than those of the financial community, as revealed in last week's ZEW survey, that showed an excess of pessimists of 6.9% in August, down from an excess of optimists of 10.4% in July regarding the six month's outlook. The first chart compares the opinions of the business and financial communities. In general, the opinions of the financial community are much more volatile than those of the business community.
The IFO presents business expectations in terms of an index with a base year of 2000 as well as the percent balances of optimists over pessimists. The index for the entire period of its existence from January 1991 to the present is shown in the second chart, compared with the 1991-2006 average of the series. Although the expectations index has declined from 101.7 in July to 100.4 in August it is still significantly above the average.
GERMAN BUSINESS CONFIDENCE (IFO) | Aug 07 | Jul 07 | Aug 06 | M/M Chg | Y/Y Chg | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Current Situation | ||||||||
Index 2000=100 | 111.5 | 111.3 | 108.8 | 0.2 | 2.7 | 108.4 | 94.7 | 93.1 |
Percent Balance | 18.6 | 18.3 | 13.3 | 0.3 | 5.3 | 12.5 | -14.2 | -17.2 |
Expectations | ||||||||
Index 2000=100 | 100.4 | 101.7 | 101.6 | -1.3 | -1.2 | 102.7 | 96.3 | 97.8 |
Percent Balance | 3.3 | 5.9 | 5.5 | -2.6 | -2.2 | 7.9 | -5.1 | -2.0 |