German Confidence Rises in January

German investor confidence rose for the third month in a row in January, hitting its highest level since February 2014, a survey suggests.

The closely followed poll by German think tank ZEW rose to 48.4 points this month, up from 39.4 in December.

Falling oil prices and a weak euro boosted sentiment, ZEW said.

The better-than-expected rise comes ahead of Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting, where it is due to take action to boost the eurozone economy.

The central bank is increasingly expected to launch a new round of economic stimulus measures, or quantitative easing (QE).

The bank has so far resisted pressure to follow in the footsteps of central banks in the UK, US and Japan by stimulating the eurozone economy through the purchase of government bonds.

In part, this has been because of opposition from Germany, which has argued that asset purchases of this type are outside of the ECB’s remit.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza