German Factory Orders Slumped Most in a Year Before Merz Won

German factory orders fell in January by the most in a year, a poor start to a quarter when Europe’s largest economy may have struggled to achieve any growth at all.

Demand decreased 7% from the previous month, a far bigger drop than any economist predicted in a Bloomberg survey. A significant decline in orders for machines and vehicles such as ships and planes drove the weakness. Without large-scale orders, it slipped by 2.7%, the statistics office said.