The ZEW-CS-Indicator for the economic sentiment in Switzerland has increased slightly. With an improvement by 1.9 points, the indicator reaches a reading of 19.4 points in June 2016. Economic expectations thereby continue the upward trend already witnessed in Q2 2016.  In June, Swiss economic expectations reached their highest assessment balance since February 2014.

The ZEW-CS-Indicator reflects the expectations of the surveyed financial market experts regarding the economic development in Switzerland on a six-month time horizon. It is calculated on a monthly basis by ZEW, Mannheim, in cooperation with Credit Suisse (CS), Zurich.

Despite the moderate optimistic sentiment regarding Swiss economic expectations, a majority of 54.8 per cent of analysts currently expects a constant economic environment over a six-month horizon. Furthermore, survey participants show a strong agreement regarding the assessment of Switzerland’s current economic situation: 93.8 per cent of analysts evaluate the situation as "normal". None of the surveyed experts considers the current economic conditions to be "bad". Consequently, the indicator which reflects Switzerland’s current economic environment increased to 6.2 points in June 2016.

With respect to stock markets, financial analysts expect to see a recovery.

For Switzerland and the Eurozone, a majority of 53.6 per cent, respectively, expects increasing stock prices. For the US, a share of 48.2 per cent is optimistic. The indicators reflecting the aggregated stock market expectations rise to a reading of 39.3 points for Switzerland and the Eurozone, respectively. The expectations for US stock markets slightly lag behind, reaching an indicator level of 26.0 points.

More detailed results – including survey participants' assessment of developments in other countries – can be found in this month's edition of the "Switzerland Financial market report" (please note that the URL is case

sensitive): http://www.zew.de/zew-cs-financialmarketreport

You can find a data sheet with the complete results of the survey in the attached PDF-file.

For further information please contact:

Dr. Lena Jaroszek, Phone +49 (0)621 1235-380, E-mail jaroszek@zew.de

Lukas Gehrig (Credit Suisse), Phone +41 44 333 52 07, E-mail lukas.gehrig@credit-suisse.com