• Consumer confidence eased 0.9pts last week to 83.0pts. The four-week moving average dipped 0.4pts to 82.8pts.
• ‘Weekly inflation expectations’ declined 0.4ppts to 4.7 per cent while the four-week moving average fell 0.1ppts to 5.0 per cent.
• ‘Current financial conditions’ (over last year) fell 1.9pts after the previous week’s 7.1pt jump, while ‘future financial conditions’ (next 12 months) lifted 0.5pts.
• ‘Short-term economic confidence’ (next 12 months) rose 0.9pts while ‘medium-term economic confidence’ (next five years) was up 2.1pts.
• The ‘time to buy a major household item’ subindex dropped 6.0pts.
ANZ Economist, Madeline Dunk said: “ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence eased 0.9pts last week, driven by a 6.0pt fall in the ‘time to buy a major household item’ subindex. The current financial situation subindex also declined 1.9pts, but it is still up 5.2pts over the past two weeks and 9.6pts compared to the start of July. Despite some volatility in the week-to-week data, it appears the Stage 3 tax cuts are supporting confidence. Notably, inflation expectations fell to 4.7 per cent, their lowest level since January 2022, before inflation picked up materially in Australia.
It’s been a bumpy path down for inflation expectations since the peak of 6.8 per cent in November 2022, and that bumpiness has been evident in other measures like the NAB business survey’s price measures. The NAB measures are now consistent with inflation sitting around 2.5 per cent. We’ll be watching to see if inflation expectations continue to moderate over the coming weeks.”
