Confidence falls for third week

Consumer confidence fell 0.6 per cent last week, 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 per cent, while ‘future financial conditions’ weakened 0.2 per cent. ‘Current economic conditions’ was unchanged and ‘future economic conditions’ gained 1.6 per cent.

‘Time to buy a major household item’ declined by 3.9 per cent, its largest weekly drop since August 2020. The four-week moving average for inflation expectations was steady at 3.7 per cent.

“Consumer confidence has fallen for the third week in a row, despite the easing of lockdown restrictions in Victoria.,” ANZ Head of Australian Economics David Plank said. “Indeed, Regional Victoria led the fall with confidence deteriorating 10.5 per cent.”

“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.”

/Public Release. View in full here.