German business confidence heads south to 5-year minimum in February

In February, German business confidence reached hit its weakest value for almost five years without any signs of a turnaround yet in sight, as follows from a closely-watched business poll published on Friday.

As the Munich-based Ifo economic institute informed, its business climate index, built around a monthly poll of businesses, went down to 98.5 in February, which appears to be its lowest result since November 2014.

The given outcome turned out to be inferior to experts’ estimates for 99.0.

The index’ forward-looking component, gauging business's hopes, went down even more steeply to its lowest value since 2012, at the depths of the euro's existential downtime.

The motor of the European Union, Germany's export-driven economy, has speeded down steeply under the influence of the trade conflict between China and America, uncertainty over Britain’s escape from the EU as well as a threat of higher levies on German-made cars from American leader.

Earlier on Friday, Germany’s Federal Statistics Office, Destatis, officially confirmed that in the fourth quarter the country’s GDP stagnated. To put that another way, it means that the German economy managed to dodge a meltdown having contracted for the last three months.

Notwithstanding the fact that ZEW's indicator of investor confidence surged to a five-month maximum, its president Achim Wambach told that neither the institute nor the analysts it polled actually expect a fast revival.

In its latest monthly report, the country’s key financial institution told that recent dismal outcomes in factory orders along with a dive in business confidence hinted at minor hope of an immediate rebound for the Germen economy.

It forecast that the underlying tempo of the Germen economy needs to stay subdued at least in the first half of 2019, although it told that there aren’t any signs that the deceleration is turning into an outright downturn.