The ANZ-Roy Morgan Research (RMR) consumer confidence index has been released for the week ended 20 April, which registered its first rise in four weeks, jumping 3.4 points (+3.0%) to be above its long-term average (113.0) but well below the highs reached after last year’s Federal Election:
The improvement in the week was driven by strength in consumers’ perceptions of ‘economic conditions next year’ and ‘financial situation compared to a year ago‘; with the latter sub-index most correlated with household consumption growth.
Below tracks the ANZ-RM index against the monthly Westpac-Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index, whose latest reading was broadly flat:
It will be interesting to see whether next month’s Westpac index follows Roy Morgan’s higher
