Investors in Europe’s biggest airline aren’t sitting comfortably in their cabins. German carrier Lufthansa —the top European airline by number of passengers—has seen its stock fall more than 40% over the past six months, The Wall Street Journal reported. European airlines are collectively down 30% due to a weakening economy, labor strikes and cutthroat competition in short-haul markets. Lufthansa’s market value including debt now amounts to just 2.6 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, compared with 3.2 times for all European airlines.

The gloom hanging over the German economy has deepened after a closely watched survey of the country’s business leaders this month found that sentiment had sunk to its lowest level in seven years, the Financial Times reported. An intensifying trade war between the US and China is weighing particularly heavily on Germany’s export-focused economy, prompting calls for the government in Berlin to ditch its commitment to running a budget surplus to provide a fiscal stimulus.

German banks grappling with the burden of negative interest rates are fighting back against a proposal to ban them from passing on the costs to their retail depositors, the Financial Times reported. They warn that such a move could unleash “dangerous instability” on financial markets. Markus Söder, the minister-president of Bavaria, proposed the ban last week in response to fears that banks could start charging their depositors if, as expected, the European Central Bank cuts interest rates further into negative territory next month. The idea is gaining political traction in Berlin.

The head of Germany’s central bank has announced his opposition to launching a major monetary or fiscal policy stimulus package in response to the recent slowdown in Europe’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. Jens Weidmann said it was not time to “panic” even though the German economy was heading for its first recession in six years after shrinking slightly in the second quarter, hit by US-China trade tensions, weak global growth and fears of a chaotic UK exit from the EU.

A small uptick in private sector activity in the eurozone in August was not enough to dispel fears of lacklustre growth in the third quarter as Germany’s export-led factory sector continued to suffer from global trade tensions and weakening growth, the Financial Times reported. A closely watched survey of executives found that the small pick-up in eurozone activity was the result of the resilience of the services sector in both France and Germany, which helped offset the woes of the German manufacturing sector. The IHS Markit purchasing managers’ composite index for the eur

Germany has sold 30-year debt at a negative yield for the first time, although demand at Wednesday’s auction was weak as some investors balked at the prospect of paying to tie up their cash for three decades, the Financial Times reported. The sale of a new bond maturing in 2050 priced with a yield of minus 0.11 per cent, roughly in line with yields in the secondary market. German 30-year bonds have sunk into negative territory in recent weeks as investors pile into safe assets in anticipation of a revival of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying quantitative easing programme.

Germany has a new test of investors’ voracious appetite for bonds with very low or even negative yields: a 30-year bond that offers no interest payments at all, the Financial Times reported. Wednesday’s auction of a new €2bn bond maturing in 2050 marks the first time that Berlin has issued 30-year debt with a zero per cent coupon — a step it has already taken with 10-year bonds.

Germany’s central bank has warned that Europe’s largest economy is likely to tip into recession in the third quarter, dragged down by a sharp drop in German exports and a decline in industrial production, the Financial Times reported. The Bundesbank said in its monthly update that it expected Germany’s economy to remain “lacklustre” in the three months to September, adding that it “could continue to decline slightly” after it shrank by 0.1 per cent in the three months to June.

The German economy shrank in the three months to June as trade tensions weighed on its export-heavy manufacturing sector and intensified the pressure on politicians in Berlin to loosen the fiscal purse strings, the Financial Times reported. Germany’s output fell 0.1 per cent in the second quarter from the previous three months, meaning annualised output growth slowed to 0.4 per cent in the year to June — its slowest for six years.

Expectations for the German economy have slumped to their lowest level since the eurozone debt crisis eight years ago amid deepening concerns over the US-China trade dispute and the potential for a chaotic UK exit from the EU, the Financial Times reported. The Zew survey of financial market experts revealed on Tuesday that economic sentiment in August had dropped to minus 44.1, its lowest since December 2011 and much gloomier than estimates from analysts in a Reuters poll who had predicted it to be minus 28.5. The index had come in at minus 24.5 in July.