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Economy in Brief
Japan Shows Very Moderate Growth As Trade War Clouds Gather
Japan’s sector indexes showed a solid gain in February...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Unexpectedly Rose in April
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128.7 in April from 127.0 (initially reported as 127.7) in March...
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
by Louise Curley September 15, 2009
In the September ZEW survey, released today, German analysts
and institutional investors were only slightly more optimistic about
the next six months than they were in August. The ZEW balance of
optimists over pessimists rose only 1.2 percentage points from 56.1% to
57.7%. The views of the financial community tend to be considerably
more volatile than the views of those engaged in industry, trade and
services. The latter represented in the IFO measure of German economic
opinion, were still showing an excess of pessimism regarding
the outlook for the next six months of 7.7% in August. The two measures
are shown in the first chart. The correlation between the two series is
only .41 suggesting that the two groups frequently differ as to the
outlook.
The German investors were also subdued in appraising the current situation. The excess of pessimists regarding the current situation declined only 3.2 percentage points to 74.0 from 77.2 in August. Again, the views of the financial community are more volatile than those of the participants in the IFO survey. The excess of pessimists among the latter was only 31% in August. In contrast to their often divergent views on the outlook the two communities tend to view the current outlook similarly. In spite of the greater volatility, the views of the financial community move in the same direction as that of the business community, as attested by the high degree of correlation--.94--between the two series shown in the second chart.
According to the President of ZEW, Prof, Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Franz, "The economic expectations for Germany are consistent with the picture that the Germany economy is recovering, but at a slow pace."
Sep 09 | Aug 09 | Sep 08 | M/M | Y/Y | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ZEW % balance | ||||||||
Current Conditions | -74.0 | -77.2 | -1.0 | 3.2 | -73.0 | 7.3 | 75.9 | 18.3 |
Expectations for Economy 6 mos ahead | 57.7 | 56.1 | -1.0 | 1.6 | 98.8 | -47.5 | -3.0 | 22.3 |
IFO % balance | ||||||||
Current Conditions | n.a. | -31.0 | -- | n.a. | n.a. | 4.0 | 18.1 | 12.7 |
Expectations 6 mos ahead | n.a. | -7.7 | -- | n.a. | n.a. | -17.4 | 5.2 | 7.9 |