By Marco Babic
ZURICH (MaceNews) – German business confidence fell in October for the first time in five months, as companies become more concerned about the business outlook in the months ahead due to an increase of COVID-19 cases.
The Ifo Institute’s Index of business sentiment Monday fell to 92.7 in October from a revised 93.2 (93.4) in September, with the decline within the range of expectations. The median forecast in an Econoday survey of economists was for a decline to 92.9 within a range of 91.0 to 93.8.
Overall sentiment was pulled down by the expectations index with fell to 95.0 from 97.4 in September. The result was at the low-end of expectations in the Econoday survey range of 94.6 to 97.6 with a median of 96.5. Ifo said that “in view of rising infection numbers, German business is becoming increasingly worried.”
By contrast, the outlook for current conditions increased in October to 90.3 from 89.2 in September, which prevented a sharper decline in the overall index. The improvement in was expected by economists, with the Econoday median at 89.5.
Today’s Ifo report follows the ZEW report released earlier this month which also showed current economic conditions improving in the face of falling expectations.
Ifo will release its Business Climate Index for November on November 24 at 10:00am CET.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
Last week, Germany’s GfK reported that consumer confidence remained negative October and expectations are that the consumer climate will worsen in November. GfK said that consumer confidence was at -1.7 in September, little changed from -1.8 the previous month. The group, however, products that the November reading will come in at -3.1, due to Corona fears.
Contact this reporter: marco@macenews.com.
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