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...

At the end of 2023, the mood in the German economy had deteriorated again according to the ifo Business Climate Index. At first glance, this negative trend continued in January. The business climate index continued to fall and expectations in the economy as a whole were more pessimistic. The ifo Institute concludes that the German economy is stuck in recession. Nevertheless, there is hope for equity investors. The deterioration in the climate is due to significant setbacks in the service sector, in trade and above all in the construction industry. In industry, on the other hand, both the business situation and the business expectations, which are decisive for the private wealth stock market indicator, have improved again following the decline...

At the end of the year, the mood in German industry deteriorated again slightly according to the ifo business climate. Business expectations became more pessimistic. And on the ifo economic clock, the rise towards recovery has stopped for the time being (chart). Only a month ago, the ifo economic indicator had indicated a turnaround for the better. Does this now need to be revised? It is important for you to know that only three consecutive declines in business expectations would erase the positive economic signal. Short-term fluctuations in this indicator are not unusual when the economy is working its way out of a trough. The positioning of the private wealth stock market indicator will therefore not change for the time being. The...

A month ago - at around 14,800 points in the DAX and 23,800 points in the MDAX - we wrote here: "A good acquaintance once said: the worse an investment feels at the moment you buy it, the better its long-term prospects. Voilà. Here we are. It actually feels very bad to invest more heavily in German equities right now. The "sick man of Europe" is in recession, the DAX has been trending downwards for weeks and the shares of small and medium-sized companies in particular have fallen massively in value. Nevertheless, the private wealth stock market indicator is giving an initial buy signal. The specific equity allocation suggested by the stock market indicator will be increased to 100 per cent of the individually planned equity allocation." You...

The fact that Germany has been unable to keep up with the economic growth of other industrialised countries for several years now is worrying. "Nevertheless, we do not want to join the general swan song for our standard of living," says Carolin Schulze Palstring in the current Metzler Private Banking investment strategy and shows how significant increases in efficiency can not only put Germany's economy back on the path to growth. Because this analysis has what it takes to be truly encouraging, we would like to present it to you in abridged form. The diagnosis is unsparing. Things are going downhill. In recent decades, potential growth, i.e. the growth rate that can be achieved when the available production factors are fully utilised,...