Germany: Business confidence decreases in August
Business confidence fell to 88.5 in August from July’s 88.6. August’s result marked the worst reading since June 2020. Consequently, the index remained entrenched below the 100-threshold, signaling that businesses were pessimistic.
The headline print reflected a deterioration in firms’ views regarding the current economic situation and more pessimism over the future economic situation.
Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING, commented:
“The positive interpretation is that the weakening of the Ifo index is slowing down. The negative interpretation is obviously that no improvement is currently in sight. […] [The] Ifo index adds to the long list of evidence that the German economy is sliding into a winter recession. The question no longer seems to be if it will be a recession. The only question is how severe and how long that recession will be.”