The high level of the consumer climate in the summer months has not been sustained in September. All three main indicators of the consumer mood are slightly down. Due to the most recent developments of the consumer climate, GfK has decreased its forecast growth of private consumption from 1.0 to 0.6% for 2007 as a whole. Following the revised 7.4 points in September, the consumer climate forecast for October is 6.8 points.

As was already evident in August, the positive consumer mood has been affected by the rather more gloomy conditions of late. Above all, the credit crisis in the USA and rising food prices are responsible for the somewhat less euphoric consumer attitudes. In addition, increasingly critical comments mean higher skepticism amongst consumers.

After a further slight drop, German economic expectations are now approaching the same level as at the beginning of the year. Compared with 48.4 points in August, the indicator lost 7.7 points and now stands at 40.7 points, which is still 28.3 points up on the same month last year.

After a decline in August, consumer income expectations have again slightly dropped by 6.9 points to 2.3 points, their lowest value since February this year. Compared with September 2006, however, the indicator is still up by 11.1 points.

After last month's buying propensity indicator remained largely untouched by growing consumer skepticism, it has now fallen from 6.4 to -2.4 points.

After considerable losses which were to some extent in the prior month, further slight losses of consumer mood indicators resulted in a declining consumer climate for the second consecutive month.