German IFO Business Climate Index drops to 87.0 in July vs. 88.9 expected

• German IFO Business Climate Index missed estimates with 87.0 in July.
• The IFO Current Economic Assessment Index declined to 87.1 in the reported month.

The headline German IFO Business Climate Index came in at 87.0 in July, falling sharply from the June figure of 88.6. The market forecast was 88.9.

Meanwhile, the Current Economic Assessment Index declined from 88.3 in June to 87.1 in the same period, missing the expected 88.5 print.

The IFO Expectations Index – indicating firms’ projections for the next six months, also dropped to 86.9  in July vs. 88.8 in June and 89.0 expected.

Market reaction to the German IFO Survey

EUR/USD pays little attention to the downbeat German IFO survey. At the time of writing, the pair is trading 0.10% higher on the day at 1.0850, awaiting the US Q2 growth data.

About German IFO

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