"It is doubtful that Switzerland is already on a sustainable recovery path"
- Hartmann of VP Bank
Expectations for the Swiss improved slightly this month, suggesting the economy is stabilising after a brief contraction earlier this year. The report from Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) and Credit Suisse showed that their index, which is designed to predict future economic activity, improved by 12.4 points, reaching -15.5, the highest level since May. The index is recovering from June's drop, when the reading came at -43.4. Despite the improvement, the data remains below the 0.0 threshold, which separates optimism from pessimism. The negative value means that there are still more economists predicting deterioration of the nation's economy than ones, who expects an improvement, however, the jump means fewer now expect further weakness in the economy.
"Over 70 percent of the participants expect the economic momentum to remain broadly unchanged over the next six months," the survey's authors said in a statement.
"It is doubtful that Switzerland is already on a sustainable recovery path. The economic problems in the eurozone are having an increasingly strong impact on the Swiss economy," Hartmann of VP Bank said.
© Dukascopy Bank SA