Apr 18, 2023
April 26, 2023
Consumer confidence remains low
Consumer confidence increased by 0.8 points last week. Among the mainland states, confidence rose in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, while it fell in New South Wales and Queensland.
‘Weekly inflation expectations’ fell 0.3 percentage points to 5.3 per cent, while the four-week moving average was down 0.1 percentage points to 5.4 per cent.
‘Current financial conditions’ rose 1.2 points but remained below 70 for a seventh-consecutive week. ‘Future financial conditions’ gained 1.6 points.
‘Current economic conditions’ fell 1.1 points, while ‘future economic conditions’ dropped 3.2 points, its third-straight weekly decline. ‘Time to buy a major household item’ jumped 5.6 points, more than reversing a 4.5-point fall recorded in the last report.
"Consumer confidence remained below 80 for the eighth week in a row," ANZ Senior Economist Adelaide Timbrell said. "This streak represents more weeks of confidence being below 80 than over the whole of 2020–22, revealing the effects of ongoing inflation and the adjustment to restrictive monetary policy.
"All housing cohorts now have confidence below 80 for the first time since mid-March, after the Reserve Bank of Australia's most-recent rate hike.
"Financial confidence was up a little compared to last week, while economic confidence was down. The ‘time to buy a major household item’ subindex jumped 5.6 points but remained below 70 for an 11th week."