Australian ANZ-Roy Morgan weekly consumer confidence retraces last week’s gains, remains above long-run average

Australia’s ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence retraced last week’s gain, declining 1.0 percent but remaining above the long-run average by some margin.

Financial conditions sub-indices were down with current financial conditions declining 0.9 percent and future financial conditions taking a bigger hit of 5.3 percent. This only took future financial conditions down to around the long-run average, however.

Economic conditions were mixed, with current economic conditions falling 1.6 percent while future economic conditions gained 0.5 percent. The ‘time to buy a household item’ moved higher for the second week, gaining 2.9 percent. Four-week moving average inflation expectations were stable at 4 percent.

"Confidence took a U-turn by falling 1.0 percent last week. The fall was somewhat surprising considering strong employment growth and reasonable wage data. The turn to a more negative outlook by one of the major Australian banks and news stories about a ban on Australian coal imports by Chinese port authorities that were then denied by authorities may have offset the positive economic data. Consumer confidence has effectively been in a holding pattern over the past three weeks, though the important thing to note is that it has remained above the long-run average," said David Plank, ANZ’s Head of Australian Economics.