Story thread · 3 reports / 2 sources

German consumer climate darkens ahead of October as higher energy costs bite

investinglive.com · 4h · first reportShare

Germany October GfK consumer climate -30.6 vs -27.4 expected Prior -26.6; revised to -26.8 The breakdownThat is a notable miss on estimates as German consumer sentiment weakens more sharply than expected heading into October. The main culprit is rising energy prices and that is weighing on purchasing power of households especially. Besides that, the sub-index for income expectations also fell sharply from 1.7 to -15.0 in the latest survey. That marks the lowest level since April, shortly before a fuel discount was introduced. Meanwhile, the sub-index measuring households' willingness to save also shot up from 15.5 to 21.5 - its highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. The survey notes that consumers are seen responding to elevated energy costs in particular. What does the data measure?The GfK/NIM consumer climate gauges German households’ confidence and likely consumption behaviour, based mainly on income expectations, willingness to buy and willingness to save. It is based on ro