ZEW-CS Financial Market Test Switzerland - Economic Outlook Improves Once More

In May 2015, the ZEW-CS Indicator rises by 23.1 points to a reading of minus 0.1 points. After the third consecutive increase the reading of the indicator currently neither points towards deterioration nor towards improvement of economic activity in Switzerland. The ZEW-CS Indicator reflects the expectations of the surveyed financial market experts regarding the economic development in Switzerland on a six-month time horizon. It is calculated monthly by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) Mannheim, in cooperation with Credit Suisse (CS), Zurich.

The current state of Switzerland’s economy is rated by the experts as being "normal" with an assessment balance of 0.0 points in May. This is a slight improvement compared to last month’s reading.

In this month's survey, both the economic expectations indicator as well as the measure for the current economic activity are in neutral territory with a reading of zero. However, the ZEW-CS Indicator for economic expectations signals uncertainty among the analysts with respect to the economic activity in Switzerland: About half of the respondents expect unchanged economic conditions in the coming months. At the same time, the shares of analysts with opposing expectations about economic improvement or deterioration are considerable and amount to about 22 per cent respectively. The release of the preliminary Swiss GDP estimate for Q1 2015 at the end of next week is likely to provide a clearer picture of the economic development.

Detailed Results

Detailed results are published in this month's edition of the "Financial Market Report Switzerland", which also includes the survey participants' assessment of developments in other countries.

For further information please contact

Dominik Rehse, Phone +49(0)621/1235-378, E-mail rehse@zew.de

Lukas Gehrig (Credit Suisse), Phone +41(0)44 333 52 07, E-mail lukas.gehrig@credit-suisse.com