German consumer sentiment unlikely to recover this year -GfK

Sentiment among German consumers is set to fall in October, as persistently high inflation encourages people to save and blots out the chances of a recovery before the end of the year, a GfK institute survey found on Wednesday. The institute's consumer sentiment index fell to -26.5 heading into October from a slightly revised -25.6 in September, below expectations of analysts polled by Reuters of -26.0. The slight decrease for a second month in a row was due primarily to a jump in consumers' propensity to save, which hit 8.0 points in September – its highest since April 2011 – after a reading of only 0.5 a month earlier, according to GfK.