DMV-ifo Marketing Barometer December 2018

Business climate in the marketing sector continues to weaken towards the end of the year.

The mood in the marketing sector deteriorated again in December. After the third consecutive loss (-0.3 points), the DMV-ifo business climate now stands at an index value of 97.7 points. This decline was driven by a much more pessimistic assessment of the business situation (-1.3 points), which could not be fully offset by the more optimistic business expectations (+0.7 points).

The downward trend in the assessment of the business climate also continued in the German economy as a whole. For the ifo Business Climate Index, the minus of 1.0 points was already the fourth consecutive loss. The resulting index value of 101.0 points is the lowest since December 2016. Despite the current overall more pessimistic business climate, the companies surveyed again looked more positively at their current order backlogs in December. After the indicator of the assessment of the order backlog had already experienced the strongest increase in over three years (+7.6 points) in the previous month, it also rose this month - albeit only by a comparatively moderate 1.1 points.

Also with regard to the coming 2-3 months, respondents are again more optimistic, at least in some areas. For the coming months, respondents expect more scope for price increases, which is reflected in an increase of 4.4 points in the indicator of price expectations. Looking at the development of the indicator for hiring plans, December showed an extremely strong increase of 15.6 points. However, this should be seen in the context of the very strong loss in November (-10.4 points). On the other hand, respondents are more pessimistic about the development of their sales. The indicator of sales expectations continued its course of monthly ups and downs since July. In contrast to previous months, however, the loss in December (-6.4 points) was much more pronounced than the increase in the previous month (+3.8 points).

The whole evaluation you find here. (only available in German)

Link to previous evaluations.