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Economy in Brief
Import Prices Continue Their Decline; Both Oil and Nonoil Prices Move Lower
Import prices fell a greater-than-expected 0.5% during January (-1.7% year-on-year)...
Empire State Manufacturing Activity Improves Modestly
The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions rose to 8.8 during February...
U.S. Retail Sales Exhibit Extensive Weakness
Total retail sales declined 1.2% (+2.3% y/y) during December...
U.S. Producer Prices Decline; Core PPI Rises
The headline Final Demand Producer Price Index edged down 0.1% for the second consecutive month in January (+2.0% y/y)...
U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Edge Back Higher
Initial claims for unemployment insurance were 239,000 in the week ended February 9...
by Louise Curley June 16, 2009
Optimists regarding the outlook for the next six months among
German financial market professionals outweighed pessimists by 44.8% in
June according to the latest ZEW Survey (The Mannheim based Center for
European Economic Research). This represented an increase of 13.7
percentage points from May and was the largest margin of optimists
since June 2006. It was also well above the long term average of 26.3%.
The financial professionals also saw some slight improvement in current
conditions. The percent balance between pessimists and optimists
declined from 92.9%in May to 89.7% in June. The first chart shows the
ZEW appraisals of current conditions and expectation for the next six
months.
A part of the group's more optimistic appraisal of the outlook can be attributed to their expectations of profit increases in both the banking and insurance industries, as shown in the second chart. Expectations of profits in the banking industry have risen from 2.0% in April to 30.8% in June, and in the insurance industry from 5.1% in May to 9.7% in June. Except for a 5.4% increase in Utilities' profits and virtually no change in Information Technology profits, expectations for all the other industry are still negative, although less so.
ZEW SURVEY | Jun 09 | May 09 | Apr 09 | Mar 09 | Feb 09 | Jan 09 | Jun 06 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Expectation Next 6 Months (% bal) | 44.8 | 31.1 | 13.0 | -3.5 | -5.8 | -31.0 | 37.8 |
Current Conditions (% bal) | -89.7 | -92.8 | -91.6 | -89.4 | -86.2 | -77.1 | 11.9 |
Profit Expectations Next 6 Months (%) | |||||||
Banking | 30.8 | 15.1 | 2.0 | -31.6 | -55.7 | -65.7 | 46.5 |
Insurance | 9.7 | 5.1 | -15.1 | -34.2 | -49.0 | -56.5 | 46.3 |