Well, again, the month suddenly comes to an end – time for my usual monthly. Hence, without further adue, let’s go into the knitty-gritty stuff.
According to pundits‘ findings in March the German GDP will only grow by 0.6% this year (here, in German). Well who would have thought (me, cf. my forecast, here)? And we all know now, that the German economy will stall at best in 2026.
While the left-leaning ThinkTank IMK was still dreaming of a 1.7%-growth of German GDP in 2026 at the end of March 2026 (here, in German (which by the way explains a lot about left phantasies as to what the state can do)), it indeed grew by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2026 according to Destatis.
The German DAX price index (for an explanation, why I prefer this index, cf. here) started at 8,702 points on 1st April and – again with some deviations – went north until 17th April with 9,172 points, but then receded to 9,000 points on 30th April. Hence, the index gained just shy of 300 points in the course of the month.
German industrial orders – after „exploding“ to by +7.8% (MoM, even +13.0% YoY) in December 2025, then cratering by -11.1% (YoY, but still +3.7% MoM) in January before recovering a bit with +0.9% (MoM, even 3.5% YoY) in February and now gaining a considerable +5% (MoM, even 6.3% YoY) in March 2026.
However, Germany’s industrial production still does not really see this inflow: after decreasing by -1.9% (MoM, -0.6% YoY) in December 2025, by another -0.5% (MoM, -1.2% YoY) in January and another -0.3% (MoM, 0.0% YoY) in February, production saw a further decline of -0.7% (MoM, even -2.8% YoY) in March 2026.
There against, German exports, after increasing by +4.0% (MoM, still 2.7% YoY) in December 2025, losing -2.3% (YoY, but +0.6% MoM) in January , gaining a considerable 3.6% (MoM, still 2.9% YoY) in February, still grew slightly by 0.5% (MoM, even 1.9% YoY) in March 2026.
For other German KPI’s, I refer you, first, to the usual (but now „refurbished“ (cf. here) „Destatis Deutschland-Dashboard“ (here) and the „Data Commons (Germany)“ (here), but also to the new IWH Forecasting Dashboard and the DATEV Mittelstandsindex.
The German Target 2 balance gained another 29bn in March 2026 and ended at Euro 1,059bn. The German inflation-rate continued to feel the spillover effects from the Gulf-War: starting from its peak of 10.4% in October 2022, the rate decreased to finally 1.6% in September 2024, re-increased to 2.6% in December 2024. After 1.8% in December 2025, the rate re-increased to 2.1% in January , before decreasing to 1.9% in February, then increasing to 2.7% in March and now to 2.9% in April 2026 (each YoY).
The German Labor market is not really enjoying the usual „spring boom“: Unemployment, after increasing to 6.2% in December 2025, to 6.6% in January, before again decreasing to 6,5% in February and 6.4% in March, remained at 6.4% in April 2026 (all MoM), thereby adding another 77,000 to the statistic on a YoY-basis. At first sight, German CORPORATE insolvency filings – after increasing by 0.4% in November, by 13.7% in December 2025 and by another 4.9% in January – seem to decrease by 0.7% in February 2026 (all YoY). However, when reading the (German) fineprint, Destatis had to admit that „In addition, no data was available for Rhineland-Palatinate for February 2026.“ There against, the IWH’s current estimate for April projects a 10% year-over-year increase in corporate insolvencies in April 2026. “Very high levels of these leading indicators in the months of February through April suggest that insolvency figures will remain very high in the coming months as well, although the figure for May could be somewhat tempered by the reduced number of business days.” Based on these figures, the institute expects “very high insolvency figures through July.” (cf. my most recent comment, here, in German).
The leading German sentiment indicators were in sync in April: The German (Industrial) Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) lost some 0.1 poins to 52.0 points in April 2026. Also, the ZEW Indicator for business expectations lost another 16.7 points to -17.2 points in April 2026. Also, the ifo Business Climate Index lost another 1.9 points and decreased to 84.4 points in April 2026. The GfK-consumer index decreased further to -28.1 points in April 2026.
To sum up: Orders and exports still grow – moderately. So did the overall GDP, also moderately. Hence, not everything is as bad as the sentiment indices show, right? Well, the problems go deeper – and the actual numbers may thus be misleading: For example, the German economy lost the incredible number of 486,000 (!) jobs in the first quarter (cf. here and here in German). Hence, despite the unemployment rate officially only rising slightly, the actual job-losses are indeed higher. While exports grow moderately, the export surplus to the US craters by more then 30% (here). Also, foreign investments into Germany plunge to a 17-year-low (here). And our oil-stock is depleting (here, in German), which will lead to a higher inflation-rate, at best. So major „second-tier“ KPI point to a stagflation, at best. And there are no real signs that the overall situaton will get better in the foreseeable future.