Tensions sink German sentiment for ninth straight month
Investor sentiment in Germany fell for the ninth month in a row in September amid jitters about the economic fallout from global crises, a survey indicated on Tuesday.
The widely watched investor confidence index for Europe's top economy calculated by the ZEW economic institute fell by 1.7 points to 6.9 points in September, it said in a statement.
However it was a shallower decline than in previous months, and the drop less steep than expected. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had pencilled in a reading of 5.0 points. "The economic environment is still marked by great insecurity," ZEW president Clemens Fuest said in a statement.
"There is still the danger of a sanctions spiral with Russia and the eurozone economy is still showing disappointing development."
Fuest added that the uncertain impact of a break-up of the United Kingdom with a referendum vote for Scottish independence on Thursday was also rattling investors.
For the survey, ZEW questions analysts and institutional investors about their current assessment of the economic situation in Germany, as well as their expectations for the coming months. The sub-index measuring financial market players' view of the current economic situation in Germany fell sharply, by 18.9 points, to 25.4 points in September.
A frequent criticism of the ZEW index is that it can be volatile and is therefore not particularly reliable.
Analyst Johannes Gareis of Natixis said that the ZEW report confirmed his assessment that the German economy was "losing steam" although "the underlying growth trend remains intact".
Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics was more downbeat, saying the survey added to "evidence that the German recovery is petering out".
She said the ZEW showed a steady slide in confidence, "perhaps reflecting ongoing fears about the effects of the Ukraine crisis and political instability elsewhere in the eurozone, most notably in France".
Berenberg bank's Robert Wood said the trend in ZEW surveys closely matched developments in Ukraine this year with the announcement of a truce two weeks ago slowing the decline in sentiment.
"If that ceasefire continues to hold, the expectations component of the ZEW index could begin rebounding as resilient German domestic demand and rebounding growth in the US and other important export markets brightens German growth prospects towards the end of the year," Wood said in a research note.
Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING-DiBa bank in Frankfurt, said the reading indicated that market investors "do not (yet) believe in the healing power of the ECB's latest monetary policy action" of record low interest rates and asset purchases to inject cash into the faltering eurozone economy.
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