Consumer confidence falls for third straight week

By in Australian Economy

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The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index has fallen for the third consecutive week to sit at levels just below the historical average:

The key points from the release are as follows:

  • Consumer confidence was down 0.6%, even as Victoria emerged from its brief circuit-breaker lockdown. The details were mixed – confidence around economic conditions improved, but weakened around financial conditions and time to buy household items.
  • ‘Current financial conditions’ softened 0.1%, while ‘future financial conditions’ weakened 0.2%.
  • ‘Current economic conditions’ was unchanged and ‘future economic conditions’ gained 1.6%.
  • ‘Time to buy a major household item’ declined by 3.9%, its largest weekly drop since August 2020. The four-week moving average for inflation expectations was steady at 3.7%.

ANZ Head of Australian Economics, David Plank, explained the movements as follows:

“Consumer confidence has fallen for the third week in a row, despite the easing of lockdown restrictions in Victoria. Indeed, Regional Victoria led the fall with confidence deteriorating 10.5%. This could possibly be a catch-up to last week’s surprise rise in regional sentiment. Within the detail, the softness in ‘time to buy a major household item’ is interesting given the current strength of the housing market. We would expect the two to go hand-in-hand, so the relative softness of this aspect of sentiment may not endure”.

The full report is downloadable here.

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