Orders for German manufactured goods pulled back sharply in April amid a decline in domestic and eurozone demand, in a gloomy sign for the economy’s performance in the second quarter after a disappointing start to 2018, the Financial Times reported. New orders in manufacturing fell 2.5 per cent in April from March on a seasonally and calendar adjusted basis, according to the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis). It marked the fourth month in a row in which orders have fallen, FactSet data show. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.8 per cent rise.

Deutsche Bank AG’s new chief executive officer, Christian Sewing, suffered a fresh setback in his efforts to reinvigorate Europe’s largest investment bank as S&P Global Ratings cut the lender’s credit rating. S&P reduced the rating by one notch to BBB+, the third-lowest investment grade, citing “significant execution risk” after several management changes and strategy updates in past years, Bloomberg News reported. Shares of the lender rebounded from a record low as the credit rating company said Deutsche Bank has good capital and liquidity buffers.

Lufthansa will not be investigated for market abuse over rising ticket prices following the collapse of local rival Air Berlin, the German cartel office said on Tuesday. The watchdog had received complaints over high ticket prices and had been looking into the matter with a view to decide whether to instigate a full investigation, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Air Berlin collapsed in October last year, leaving Lufthansa with a monopoly on some German domestic routes for a few months.

Deutsche Bank AG’s head of emerging-market debt trading has become the latest top executive to exit as high turnover roils Europe’s biggest investment bank. Sean Bates, who held senior roles at the firm since before the 2008 financial crisis, will be succeeded by James Davies, Deutsche Bank spokesman Charlie Olivier said Monday. Bates declined to comment, Bloomberg News reported. A string of top managers have departed since Christian Sewing took over as chief executive officer last month and signaled a restructuring of the struggling lender after years of losses.

Managers of insolvent P&R Group are being investigated after it was discovered the investment firm sold nearly one million more shipping containers than it owned, the Munich prosecutors’ office said on Thursday. Once the world’s biggest lessor of shipping containers, P&R sells containers to investors and its sister company in Switzerland rents them out to shipping companies, Reuters reported. P&R later buys back the containers from investors.

Europe’s largest economy cooled sharply in the first quarter amid a drop in government spending and weak exports—a sign that a stronger euro and global tensions are beginning to leave a mark on the German economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Germany’s annualized growth rate slowed to 1.2% from 2.5% in the fourth quarter of last year, the Federal Statistical Office said Tuesday. This means that the German economy was growing more slowly than the U.S., which registered growth of 2.3% in the same period.

Deutsche Bank's sudden change in chief executive could prolong the lender's restructuring, ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) said as it placed the bank on "credit watch negative" late on Thursday. Last weekend retail banking specialist Christian Sewing replaced John Cryan as Deutsche's CEO, raising the prospect of radical change at Germany's flagship lender, which has been slower than rivals to reform after the financial crisis, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

Deutsche Bank AG may be downgraded by S&P Global Ratings, which said the German bank’s leadership change may signal a “prolonged, deepened or more costly restructuring” that could weigh on the bank’s credit rating, Bloomberg News reported. The lender’s A- long-term rating is under review, S&P said in a statement late Thursday, while affirming its BBB- rating on the bank’s senior subordinated debt.

German industrial production dropped in February by the widest margin in two and a half years, according to data released on Friday that underscore the headwinds faced by the eurozone’s powerhouse economy in the first quarter, the Financial Times reported. The wide-ranging gauge of German industry slumped 1.6 per cent in February from the previous month, according to the Federal Statistics Office. It was the steepest fall since August 2015 and compared with economist expectations of a 0.3 per cent rise, according to FactSet data. Energy production was a standout, jumping 4 per cent.

A key gauge of financial professionals’ view of the German economy tumbled this month in the latest sign that the spectre of a ‘trade war’ is hitting confidence in the eurozone’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. The Centre for European Economic Research (Zew) economic sentiment index dropped 12.7 points in March from February to 5.1 points. The reading was far below the consensus estimate in a Reuters poll of 13. This month’s reading pulled the Zew indicator further away from the long-term average of 23.6 points.