German industrial output surprisingly fell in November to stoke fears of a recession in the eurozone’s largest economy. Output shrank by 1.9% against an expectation of 0.3% growth and the downwardly revised figure of -0.8% the previous month won’t help matters either. It looks as if the GDP growth rate figures for the fourth quarter of 2018 could well be disappointing.
Yesterday was not a good day for the eurozone in general either, as economic confidence dropped to its lowest level since Trump became the president in November. The economic sentiment indicator fell to 107.3 in December, from 109.5 the month before and below the 108.4 the markets had been expecting. Business confidence in the eurozone was also disappointing, as it decreased by 0.22 points to 0.82 last month, some way below expectations of 0.99. It is the lowest reading since March 2017 to pile more pressure on the eurozone’s economy.
Today we will see Germany’s balance of trade figures for November, as well as the eurozone’s unemployment rate for November. There is also the European Central Bank’s non-monetary policy meeting. These are certainly worrying times for the eurozone.
