Frankfurt (dpa) – More than half the companies listed on the DAX index of the largest companies listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange corrected their outlook upward over the course of 2017, according to an analysis published in the German financial capital on Tuesday.
As many as 57 per cent of these blue chip stocks put out improved outlooks at least once, the EY consultancy said. Just 10 per cent had to cut profit or turnover predictions.
“The economy has grown more strongly than expected over recent months, both in Europe and in other regions such as Asia and North America,” EY partner Marc Foerstemann said.
“Many businesses planned cautiously for the financial year, and for them the continuing extremely positive developments came as a surprise.”
EY evaluated data from 304 companies from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s Prime Standard. The indices DAX, MDAX, TecDAX and SDAX belong to the Prime Standard, a Frankfurt Stock Exchange standard that sets higher transparency requirements than set by law.
In total, the number of improved outlooks rose to a record 199 from 89 in 2016. EY also counted 95 profit or turnover warnings, 44 per cent up on the year and the highest number since 2011 when the analysis was first conducted.