The ABS released the latest national accounts, to March 2015. The Household Finance and Wealth data confirms again what we know, overall household net worth is up (thanks to asset appreciation) but savings are down.
At the end of March quarter 2015, household net worth was $8,090.9b, made up predominantly of $5,451.8b of land and dwelling assets and $4,131.0b of financial assets, less $2,121.6b of household liabilities. During the quarter, household net worth increased by $231.5b, driven mainly by holding gains of $207.0b. Financial assets ($129.0b) and land and dwellings ($79.8b) were the drivers of holding gains this quarter, with financial assets seeing the largest quarterly holding gains on record. The large increase in holding gains from financial assets was driven by net equity in reserves ($90.6b) and equities ($36.2b).
The increase of $17.6b in transactions in net worth was driven by $9.7b increase in net capital formation of land and dwellings; and net financial transactions of $7.3b, of which transactions in financial assets were $30.8b and liabilities were $23.5b. The March quarter 2015 transactions in financial assets were driven by $13.8b of transactions in net equity in reserves of pension funds and $11.2b of transactions in deposits. Transactions in liabilities in March quarter 2015 were driven by transactions of $24.3b in long term loan borrowing.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.