Investing.com - German economic sentiment deteriorated unexpectedly in May, amid ongoing concerns over the global economy and worries over a U.K. exit from the European Union, industry data showed on Tuesday.
In a report, the ZEW Centre for Economic Research said that its index of German economic sentiment declined by 4.8 points to 6.4 this month from April’s reading of 11.2. Analysts had expected the index to rise by 0.8 points to 12.0 in May.
The Current Conditions Index improved to 53.1 this month from 47.7 in April, above expectations for a reading of 48.9.
Meanwhile, the index of euro zone economic sentiment dropped to 16.8 in May from 21.5 a month earlier, missing forecasts for 23.4.
On the index, a level above 0.0 indicates optimism, a level below 0.0 indicates pessimism.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.1182 from around 1.1179 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7691 from 0.7690 earlier.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly higher. Germany's DAX climbed 0.7%, the EURO STOXX 50 tacked on 0.9%, France’s CAC 40 jumped 1.2%, while London’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.7%.