The weekly Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating shows Consumer Confidence falling to 113.4 (down 1.6pts in a week since May 25/26, 2013) – now at its lowest since November 2012. However, Consumer Confidence is still 5.1pts higher than at the same time a year ago when it was 108.3 (May 26/27, 2012). This week’s large fall in Consumer Confidence has been driven mainly by less confidence in Australia’s economic conditions in the next year and also less confidence in personal financial situations in the next year.
Fewer Australians 25% (down 3%) expect ‘good times’ over the next twelve months for the Australian economy (the lowest since August 13/14, 2011) compared to 33% (unchanged) that expect ‘bad times’ economically.
Of Australians, 16% (up 2%) expect to be ‘worse off’ financially over the next 12 months (the highest since December 15/16, 2012) while 41% (unchanged) expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
