A booming stock market. Confident executives. Optimistic consumers. Who would have thought that the scene for all this jollity would be Germany?
Germans are at their most positive since last August, according to a consumer survey released on Tuesday. In some boardrooms, things seem equally rosy. Deutsche Bank reported its best quarterly profit in 14 years. The lender is one of several companies that have maintained full-year projections, as foreign rivals step back from theirs.
Lufthansa, for example, stood by its outlook for the year on Tuesday — a real rarity in the economically sensitive airline world. Adidas boss Bjørn Gulden went further after solid first-quarter earnings, saying that “in a normal world” — meaning but for US tariffs — the sportswear giant would have raised its forecasts.