In April, the German IFO indicator rose for a sixth consecutive month. The IFO business climate indicator rose marginally in April, from 109.8 to 109.9, while the consensus was looking for a drop to 109.5. The details show a marginal improvement in the current assessment sub-indexes (117.5 from 117.4), while the expectations component stabilized at 102.7. The sector breakdown show an improvement in manufacturing (15.4 from 14.0) and retail trade (10.8 from 10.7), while construction (-3.8 from 2.2) and wholesale trade (12.7 from 12.8) weakened during the month. It is quite remarkable that the IFO business climate indicator is holding up that well especially as the hard data remain rather weak. It will be interesting to see whether the strong confidence will translate into hard data in the coming months.