German Investor Confidence Rises to One-Year High Before QE

German investor confidence rose to the highest level in a year in February, buoyed by the imminent arrival of fresh central-bank stimulus. 

The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said on Tuesday that its index of investor and analyst expectations, which aims to predict economic developments six months in advance, climbed to 53.0 from 48.4 in January.

Economists had forecast an increase to 55.0, according to the median of 32 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

Growth accelerated at the end of last year in Germany, the region’s largest economy, helping the rest of the currency bloc to better-than-forecast output.

With oil prices and the euro sinking, and the European Central Bank scheduled to start quantitative easing next month, investors have stayed upbeat even as the mounting risk of a crisis in Greece threatens renewed turmoil.

“Since the turnaround in November, the ZEW investor economic sentiment indicator has increased steeply, outperforming expectations,” Societe Generale SA economists including Anatoli Annenkov in London said in a note. “Growth could continue to surprise on the upside at the start of 2015.”

A gauge of the current situation climbed to 45.5 in February from 22.4 the previous month, ZEW said. A measure of expectations for the euro area rose to 52.7 from 45.2. The survey of 227 analysts was conducted from Feb. 2 to Feb. 16.