The steep decline in the ZEW indicator of economic sentiment indicates the swiftly diminishing optimism regarding Germany's economic recovery. The indicator experienced a 15.6-point fall in September to 3.6, its lowest level since November 2023. This steep decline suggests increasing pessimism, as the optimism that prevailed in previous months has dissipated. In addition, Germany's current economic situation was evaluated at a dismal minus 84.5 points, the lowest since May 2020. This was attributed to several economic concerns, as financial specialists are evenly divided between optimists and pessimists.

The Eurozone is also experiencing a rise in pessimism, as its economic sentiment indicator has decreased by 8.6 points, resulting in a reading of 9.3 points. Similarly, the Eurozone's situation indicator decreased by 8 points to minus 40.4 points, indicating a heightened level of apprehension throughout the region. The rapid declines indicate that financial analysts have already taken into consideration the European Central Bank's interest rate decisions, underscoring the more extensive obstacles that Europe's economic recovery is currently encountering. This consensus currently leaves the RPI at minus 11 and the RPI-P at minus 13, indicating that the German economy is underperforming compared to market predictions.

ZEW's expectations component (economic sentiment), which in the last report fell steeply from 41.8 to 19.2, is seen falling further to 17.5.

The Mannheim-based Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), asks German financial experts every month for their opinions on current economic conditions and the economic outlook for Germany (as well as other major industrial economies). The responses are synthesised into two simple indices that provide a snapshot of how the economy is seen to be performing.

The ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment is calculated from the results of the ZEW Financial Market Survey. The ZEW is followed closely as a precursor and predictor of the Ifo Sentiment Survey and as such is followed closely by market participants. The data are available around mid-month for the current month. The survey provides a measure of analysts' view of current economic conditions as well as a gauge of expectations about the coming six months. The latter measure tends to have the larger market impact and reflects the difference between the share of analysts that are optimistic and the share of analysts that are pessimistic. About 350 financial experts take part in the survey.