The consumer mood has shown a clear improvement in 2018, the first half of the year marking the best run of sentiment reads since 2014. That said, the Index has not built on the gains seen at the start of the year and remains well below the levels typically associated with a robust consumer. While there has been a clear lift in confidence around the economy, this has had a muted impact on views around family finances, which remain downbeat.
The June survey detail suggests the sentiment mix may be starting to shift with a better read on family finances, albeit offset by a less upbeat assessment of the economy.
The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers
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.
