ZEW-CS Financial Market Test Switzerland - Stable Economic Outlook in April

Reaching the 2.1 points-mark in April 2012, economic sentiment for Switzerland manoeuvres at a slightly higher level compared to the March reading. Due to this month’s improvement by 2.1 points the ZEW-CS Indicator stabilises at positive territory. 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.

Financial market experts’ opinion about the current economic situation in Switzerland improved for the second consecutive month in April. Thus, the indicator reaches a positive level for the first time since October 2011. The respective indicator increases by 8.2 points to the 2.2 mark.

Regarding the exchange rate of the Swiss franc versus the Euro an unchanged majority of experts (58.7 per cent) expect a stable rate. The share of financial analysts expecting the Swiss franc to depreciate versus the Euro in the next six months increases slightly to 32.6 per cent in April.

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