German investor confidence rose for a second straight month in April to its highest level in more than one-and-a-half years, as the recent run of strong economic data boosted financial experts' economic expectations.
The economic sentiment indicator climbed to 19.5 from 12.8 in March, survey results from the Mannheim-based think tank ZEW showed, sailing past the 14.8 economists had predicted.
Though the long-term average as calculated from the beginning of the survey in December 1991 is yet to be beaten, these results are comparable to the expectations prior to the Brexit vote in June last year, the ZEW said.
The current situation index rose to 80.1 from 77.3 in March. The reading is now at its highest level since July 2011. Economists had forecast a modest improvement to 77.5.
"The German economic situation has proved fairly robust in the first quarter," ZEW President Achim Wambach said.
"This is highlighted by the solid figures for growth in industrial production, the construction sector and retail sales from February."
The consistently high labor demand has boosted private consumption, Wambach pointed out.
"The financial market experts expect this positive development to continue," he added.
The economic sentiment indicator for Eurozone gained 0.7 points to reach 26.3 and the current situation measure added 4.1 points to 11.5, which was the highest level since May 2008.
The upbeat ZEW figures adds to the official figures released last week, which showed that industrial production and exports logged surprise growth in February.
These data suggest the biggest euro area economy grew robustly in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, Eurozone investor confidence strengthened to its highest in nearly a decade in April, survey data from Sentix showed Monday.
However, figures from Eurostat showed on Tuesday that industrial production in February unexpectedly declined 0.3 percent from the previous month. The annual growth was 1.2 percent, which was weaker than the 1.9 percent economists' had predicted.
"Today's releases brought somewhat mixed evidence, with the hard data still not bearing out the very strong positive message from the surveys," Capital Economics economist Jennifer McKeown said.
"But this partly reflects weather effects and we still see euro-zone GDP rising by a healthy 2.0 percent this year as a whole."
by RTT Staff Writer
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