Manufacturing orders were sharply weaker and well below expectations in November. Real orders declined by 5.4 percent month-over-month and 1.7 percent year-over-year, largely driven by the absence of large-scale orders. Excluding these outliers, orders showed resilience, increasing 0.2 percent month-over-month, highlighting steady baseline demand.

Sector-specific results showed that intermediate goods orders grew 1.8 percent, reflecting stable supply chain activity, while capital and consumer goods orders declined significantly (minus 9.4 percent and minus 7.1 percent, respectively), underscoring weak investment sentiment and constrained consumer demand.

Geographically, domestic orders surged 3.8 percent, suggesting strong local demand, but foreign orders fell sharply (minus 10.8 percent), with non-Eurozone markets (minus 14.8 percent) facing pronounced declines, likely due to global economic uncertainties.

Turnover provided a bright spot, rising 1.4 percent month-over-month, signalling robust sales activity despite year-over-year turnover remaining 2.3 percent lower.

The drop in large-scale orders, particularly in vehicle construction (minus 58.4 percent) dominated November's results but masked gains in core industries like mechanical engineering (1.2 percent) and chemicals (1.7 percent). This reflects a sector grappling with volatility while demonstrating pockets of resilience that could support recovery in the coming months.

The latest update takes the German RPI to 24 and the RPI-P to 9, meaning that economic activities are ahead of market expectations.

The consensus looks for an uninspiring flat reading on the month after a decline of 1.5 percent in October.

Manufacturers orders are a leading indicator for industrial production. The figures are calculated every month by the Federal Statistical Office and represent the value of all orders for the delivery of self-made products confirmed by industrial enterprises with 50 or more employees in the respective reporting period. The results are broken down by both sector and region of origin (domestic and foreign split into euro area and non-euro area). Monthly volatility can be very high so moving averages give a much better guide to underlying trends.

Manufacturers orders data are keenly awaited by analysts each month. The data present a detailed breakdown by various sectors and a reading of the pulse of a major sector of the economy. Like the PPI, manufacturing orders data exclude construction, which is the preferred Eurostat measure.

The manufacturers orders data rank among the most important early indicators for monitoring and analyzing German economic wellbeing. Because these data are available for both foreign and domestic orders they are a good indication of the relative strength of the domestic and export economies. The results are compiled each month in the form of value indexes to measure the nominal development of demand and in the form of volume indexes to illustrate the price-adjusted development of demand. Unlike in the U.S., orders data are not collected for all manufacturing classifications - but only those parts in which the make-to-order production plays a prominent role. Not included are, for example, mining, quarrying and the food industry.