German Economic Sentiment Craters

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment for Germany has decreased by 5.0 points in October 2011. This is the eighth decline in a row. The indicator now stands at minus 48.3 points. This value is below the indicator’s historical average of 25.3 points. A lower value of the indicator was seen last in November 2008.

The bad economic news that has raced across Europe recently has gotten worse.

Douglas A. McIntyre
 

Weak data concerning Germany’s domestic economic activity have contributed to the indicator’s decline. Due to the decrease of retail sales and industrial new orders the financial market experts may see their fears come true that the current government debt crisis might cause German companies and consumers to postpone investments and consumption spending.
 

In October the assessment of the current economic situation in Germany has lost ground for the third consecutive time. The corresponding indicator has dropped by 5.2 points to the 38.4  points-mark. Economic expectations for the eurozone have decreased by 6.6 points in October. The respective indicator now stands at minus 51.2 points. The indicator for the current economic situation in the eurozone has dropped by 3.8 points and now stands at the minus 31.7 threshold.

 

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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