The Westpac credit card tracker makes the point.
The Westpac Card Tracker Index* declined 1.9pts over the two weeks to April 6. At 133.7, the latest Index read is only slightly above the low seen at the start of March.
While quarterly growth momentum is still positive, and materially improved on the weakness seen around the turn of the year, it remains unconvincing.
The latest weekly reads show quarterly growth tracking around 0.5-1%, up on Q4’s 1.3% contraction but only in line with inflation, suggesting underlying volumes are flat at best.
Monthly reads also show a patchy, inconsistent performance, a relatively robust gain in Feb followed by what looks to be a sharp decline in March.
While that stops short of signalling a clear tip back into contraction (particularly given the presence of Easter-related disruptions), momentum does look to be fading after the improvement earlier in the year.
The category breakdown shows the moderation in momentum is broadly based but more pronounced for discretionary categories and fuel where the softening is due to both price and volume effects.
The moderation is also broadly based across states but more pronounced across the smaller states, and Vic a notable exception.
All states are still seeing positive momentum on a quarterly basis.
Other timely data releases continue to corroborate the picture from card data.
March updates due in 3-5 weeks’ time will be another important gauge.
Our card data suggest these will show some weakening month to month but quarter momentum holding in slight positive.
For total consumer spending, the March quarter as a whole looks to be tracking a 0.5%qtr nominal gain and something in the 0.2-0.%qtr range in real, inflation-adjusted terms.
Albo’s per capita recession is forever now!
