ZEW-CS Financial Market Test Switzerland: Economic Expectations Reach Balanced Level

In March 2012 economic sentiment for Switzerland has improved markedly by 21.2 points and is now balanced at the 0.0 level. This is the third consecutive increase of the ZEW-CS-Indicator. The ZEW-CS Indicator is calculated monthly by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in cooperation with Credit Suisse (CS). The indicator reflects the expectations of the surveyed financial market experts regarding the economic development in Switzerland on a six-month time horizon.

Since the indicator’s low in December 2011 the share of analysts expecting the economic situation to worsen decreased by 46 percentage points. It now amounts to 28.0 per cent. An equal share of financial market experts expects the Swiss economy to brighten up over the next six months.

Financial market experts’ opinion on the current economic situation improved in March, too. The respective indicator increased by 9.5 points to the minus 6.0 mark.

Regarding the exchange rate of the Swiss franc versus the Euro a majority of experts (58.0 per cent) expect a stable rate. Only 14.0 per cent of the surveyed analysts see the Swiss franc to increase versus the Euro in the next six months.

For further information please contact

Lena Jaroszek (ZEW), Phone +49 621/1235-380, E-mail jaroszek@zew.de

Maxime Botteron (CS), Phone +41 443329061, E-mail maxime.botteron@credit-suisse.com