Investing.com - German economic sentiment improved to a four-month high in December, fueling optimism over the health of the euro zone's largest economy, industry data showed on Tuesday.
In a report, the ZEW Centre for Economic Research said that its index of German economic sentiment rose by 5.7 points to 16.1 this month from November’s reading of 10.4. Analysts had expected the index to rise by 4.6 points to 15.0 in December.
The Current Conditions Index inched up to 55.0 this month from 54.4 in November, better than expectations for a reading of 54.2.
Meanwhile, the index of euro zone economic sentiment increased to 33.9 in December from 28.3 a month earlier, missing forecasts for 34.4.
On the index, a level above 0.0 indicates optimism, a level below 0.0 indicates pessimism.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.1030 from around 1.1026 ahead of the release of the data, while EUR/GBP was at 0.7273 from 0.7274 earlier.
The Investing.com euro index, which tracks the single currency against a basket of six major rivals, was at 88.40, compared to 88.38 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, European stock markets were broadly higher. Germany's DAX rallied 2.2%, the EURO STOXX 50 jumped 2.1%, France’s CAC 40 rose 2.3%, while London’s FTSE 100 advanced 1.7%.