ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence fell 1.8% this week with sentiment now evenly balanced between positive and negative sentiment. This is well below the 2021 weekly average but is 8.9% higher than the same week a year ago.
The decrease was driven by declines in NSW and Victoria as well as small falls in views towards people’s personal financial situations, and whether now is a good or bad time to buy major household items, with these intentions slightly weaker.
ANZ head of economics, David Plank said the decline was felt despite rising vaccination rates and reasonably good economic news with a slight rise in Q2 GDP.
He said sentiment dropped in Sydney (-5.3%), Melbourne (-0.8%) and Brisbane (-2.9%), while Adelaide (+5.0%) and Perth (+2.3%) lifted.
“The most notable thing in this week’s release is the jump in inflation expectations to its highest level in almost three years. The weekly reading can be volatile so we need to be a bit cautious about overplaying the move, but if sustained it will cement the sharpest jump in inflation expectations since we moved to collecting the data on a weekly basis,” Plank said.