Euro Crisis Has Affected Germany, Switzerland Still Immune

Both Swiss and German economic indicators show continued signs of stability, but the German situation has become worse and might affect the Swiss.

Especially low unemployment, rising real wages, and strong trade balances are signs of robustness.

Despite that, Germany's industrial production is weaker than last year; the strong growth of 2011 has finished. Switzerland sees higher increases in real wages. Thanks to higher incomes and lower prices, Swiss retail sales rose by 5.9% on a yearly basis, but fell by 0.8% in Germany. Construction is now slowing in both Switzerland and Germany.

The Swiss "KOF leading indicators" have risen from 0.01 in Q4/2011 to 1.67 now, but are situated still under the value of 2.23 from June last year. The leading German indicator, the "IFO business expectations" stands at 93.2 and is clearly behind last year's June value of 106.3 and