Industrial economy may have bottomed out - continue to invest in equities.
The stabilisation process of the German economy is almost textbook. According to the ifo Business Climate Index, the situation has deteriorated continuously since mid-2022 and has now reached a level in February 2024 where positive and negative reports from the boardrooms roughly balance each other out. That looks like zero growth. Will it stay that way in 2024? Will the economy improve in future? Or will it continue to deteriorate? The business expectations for the next six months provide an insight into this. Although these are still pessimistic, the degree of scepticism is slowly decreasing. The ifo therefore writes that the economy is stabilising at a low level.
In our view, there is even justified hope that this could result in a slight...