German IFO Business Climate Index eases to 89.3 in May vs. 90.3 expected

• German IFO Business Climate Index misses estimates with 89.3 in May.
• IFO Current Economic Assessment Index declines to 88.3 in the reported month.

The headline German IFO Business Climate Index arrived at 89.3 in May, a tad lower than the April figure of 89.4. The market expectation was 90.3.

Meanwhile, the Current Economic Assessment Index dipped from 88.9 in April to 88.3 in the same period, missing estimates of 89.9.

The IFO Expectations Index – indicating firms’ projections for the next six months, rose to 90.4 in May vs. 89.7 in April but fell short of the market consensus of 90.5.

Market reaction to the German IFO Survey

EUR/USD fails to react to the downbeat German IFO survey. At the time of writing, the pair is trading almost unchanged at 1.0845 amid holiday-thinned light trading.

About German IFO

The headline IFO business climate index was rebased and recalibrated in May after the IFO Research Institute changed the series from the base year of 2000 to the base year of 2005 as of May 2011 and then changed series to include services as of May 2018. The survey now includes 9,000 monthly survey responses from firms in the manufacturing, service sector, trade and construction.