German factory orders likely to have declined in April

Germany’s factory orders in April are likely to have dropped after expanding over 1.9% m/m in March. Factory orders are expected to have fallen 0.8% on sequential basis, said Societe Generale in a research report. Even if domestic orders might have recovered slightly, external orders are expected to have declined strongly after posting a solid growth of 4.3% m/m rise in March.

Factor order, hence are expected to slightly slowdown in the second quarter. This implies that industrial output is also expected to decelerate after recording in a strong growth in the first quarter. Better domestic conditions are expected to mainly counter the weak demand from abroad.

“We expect the underlying economic trend to be consistent with around GDP growth of 0.3-0.4% qoq this year”, noted Societe Generale.