German IFO Business Climate Index eases to 84.3 in October vs. 83.3 expected

• German IFO Business Climate Index came in at 84.3 in October.
• IFO Current Economic Assessment for Germany dropped to 94.1 this month.
• October German IFO Expectations Index arrived at 75.6, an upside surprise.

The headline German IFO Business Climate Index eased slightly to 84.3 in October versus the previous reading of 84.4 the market consensus of 83.3.

Meanwhile, the Current Economic Assessment dropped to 94.1 points in the reported month as compared to July's 94.5 and 92.4 expected.

The IFO Expectations Index – indicating firms’ projections for the next six months, rose to 75.6 in October from the last month’s 75.3 and against the estimates of 75.0.

Market reaction

EUR/USD draws some support from the upbeat German IFO survey. At the time of writing, the pair is trading at 0.9864, down 0.07% on the day.

About German IFO

The headline IFO business climate index was rebased and recalibrated in April 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 the series to include services as of April 2018. The survey now includes 9,000 monthly survey responses from firms in the manufacturing, service sector, trade and construction.