Status: 01/18/2022 12:14 p.m
The economic expectations of financial experts surprisingly improved significantly in January. Despite the Omicron wave, stock market professionals are again more optimistic about the coming months.
The economic prospects of the German stock market professionals have improved significantly at the beginning of the new year. Although concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant of the corona virus have recently clouded the prospects, financial experts are again surprisingly optimistic about the economy in Germany. The ZEW index, the barometer for the assessment of the next six months, unexpectedly rose by 21.8 to 51.7 points in January, as reported by the Mannheim Center for European Economic Research (ZEW).
Positive outlook, sober inventory
“The economic outlook has improved considerably since the beginning of the new year,” commented ZEW President Achim Wambach: “The majority of financial market experts assume that economic growth will improve in the coming six months.” According to this, the phase of economic weakness from the fourth quarter of last year should soon be over, because the corona incidences are likely to weaken significantly by early summer.
However, the assessment of the economic situation clouded over more than expected. The corresponding indicator fell by 2.8 points to minus 10.2 points. Expectations in the euro zone also improved significantly, while the assessment of the situation also fell sharply.
Slowing economy in winter
The more positive economic expectations affect a large part of the German economy with the consumer-related and export-oriented sectors. Chief economist Thomas Gitzel from VP Bank spoke of a clear sign of an upswing and expects things to improve in the spring: “The supply chain difficulties for many products will then not be resolved, but they will at least improve.”
In 2021 as a whole, the German economy grew by 2.7 percent. But between October and December, according to an initial estimate by the Federal Statistical Office, the economy buckled compared to the summer quarter. For 2022, most experts expect more growth overall than in the previous year, but the Corona variant Omikron should still be a burden for companies and consumers at the beginning of the year.