Consumer confidence rebounds

Consumer confidence increased 2.3pts last week to 80.4 after a cumulative fall of 8.7pts over the previous two weeks. Confidence lifted across all five mainland states.

‘Weekly inflation expectations’ fell 0.4ppt to 5.1%. Its four-week moving average fell 0.1ppt to 5.3%.

Four of the five confidence subindices gained. ‘Current financial conditions’ rose 4.9pts, exactly offsetting the previous week’s fall. ‘Future financial conditions’ increased slightly by 0.6pts.

‘Current economic conditions’ gained 2.8pts after a 12pt decline over the previous three weeks. ‘Future economic conditions’ softened 2.4pts.

‘Time to buy a major household item’ increased 5.7pts.

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"Consumer confidence increased last week but remained lower than before the February RBA cash rate hike," ANZ Senior Economist Adelaide Timbrell said. "At 80.4, the Consumer Confidence Index was among the worst ten results in the 150 weeks since the initial COVID outbreak in Australia."

"The confidence among those paying off their mortgage is still lower than the other groups, at 73.8. Average confidence rose for all the three housing groups during the week, with gains of 1.4pts for people who own their home outright, 3.1pts for those paying off their mortgage, and 2.6pts for renters."

"Household inflation expectations softened to 5.1%, potentially a lagged response to the rise in interest rates." 

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