German Consumer Confidence Set to Stagnate in August

By Maria Martinez

German consumer sentiment is expected to remain unchanged from the previous month in August, according to data from the market-research group GfK released Wednesday.

GfK's forward-looking consumer sentiment index is set to stay at minus 0.3 points in August, unchanged from July, when it reached the highest level since August 2020. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected consumer sentiment to rise to 0.5.

"The phase where the decrease of COVID-19 incidence of infection has come to an end and those figures are again on the rise," said Rolf Buerkl, consumer expert at GfK.

Furthermore, the momentum for vaccination has recently slowed down considerably, despite sufficient quantities of the vaccine available, preventing any further significant increase in consumer sentiment, he added.

GfK uses data from three subindexes from the current month to derive a sentiment figure for the coming month, measuring economic expectations, income expectations and propensity to buy. In July both economic and income expectations showed moderate losses, while the propensity to buy increased slightly.

After climbing to a 10-year high in the previous month, the indicator of economic expectations fell to 54.6 in July from 58.4 in June.

"Consumers continue to view the German economy as being on the upswing," the report said.

Income expectations also showed a moderate decline in July, dropping to 29.0 in July from 34.1 in June, driven by inflation expectations, GfK said. However, propensity to buy edged up to 14.8 in July from 13.4 points in June.

"Despite the current stagnation of consumer confidence, the domestic economy will make a positive contribution to overall economic development in the second half of the year," Mr. Buerkl said.

Write to Maria Martinez at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-28-21 0214ET