The weekly Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Rating fell to 118.8 (down 4.1pts in a week since November 16/17, 2013). The fall in confidence was driven across all five indicators which lessened in confidence this week.
Australians are less confident about their personal finances over the next twelve months with 39% (down 4%) of Australians expecting to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year compared to 13% (down 1%) that expect their family to be ‘worse off’ financially.
In addition, compared to this time last year now 25% (up 4%) of Australians say they are ‘worse off’ financially and 31% (down 1%) say they are ‘better off’ financially.
In terms of the Australian economy now 38% (down 3%) expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next five years compared to 20% (up 2%) that expect ‘bad times’.
Also 34% (down 3%) expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months and 26% (up 1%) expect ‘bad times’.
In addition a decreasing majority of Australians (51%, down 5%) say now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items while 15% (down 2%) of Australians say now is a ‘bad time to buy’.
RM puts this down to the Indonesian furor. I guess so. There’s been a fair bit of economic gloom around, though.
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.
