KOF Economic Barometer: Standing still, but slight shifts

The KOF Economic Barometer shows the same reading in August as in the previous month. The Barometer thus continues to indicate below-average momentum. Accordingly, during the next few months the Swiss economy can be expected to perform moderately.

In August, the KOF Economic Barometer remained at the previous month’s level of 97.0 (revised from 97.1). This, however, conceals slight shifts amongst the components underlying the Barometer. Somewhat more favourable signals than before are coming from indicators of foreign demand and domestically from consumer prospects and manufacturing. The remaining indicator bundles (accommodation and food service activities, financial, insurance and other services as well as construction), however, tend to point to stagnation or slight deterioration in economic sentiment.

In the goods producing sectors (manufacturing and construction), the barometer is strengthened mostly by indicators on order backlog and inventories. The remaining indicators are emitting only negligible signals.

Within manufacturing, the outlook has become more favourable especially for machinery, the metal industry, the chemical industry as well as for food and beverages. On the other hand, the outlook has mainly worsened for the paper and the electrical industries.

Values KOF Economic Barometer

Contact

Prof. Dr. Michael Graff
  • LEE G 206
  • +41 44 632 09 89

KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle
Leonhardstrasse 21
8092 Zürich
Switzerland

JavaScript has been disabled in your browser