Consumer spending helps Germany skirt recession in Q3

Higher household and government spending enabled Germany, Europe's biggest economy, to avoid a recession in the third quarter, official data showed on Tuesday.
Increased exports also provided a boost, while falling investment acted as a drag on recovery, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement.
Confirming a preliminary estimate released earlier this month, the statisticians calculated that gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 0.1 percent in the period from July to September.
In the preceding three months, the economy had shrunk by 0.1 percent. Recession is technically defined as two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.