Consumer confidence highest since February
Consumer confidence in Australia has reached its highest point since February, according to research from Roy Morgan.
Australians are now more confident about the economy over the next twelve months, the study found, with 33% of Australians expecting ‘good times’ economically compared to 29% who expect ‘bad times’. The proportion of optimists is up 4%, while the level of pessimism has fallen by 1%.
Over the next five years 35% – a rise of up 1% – of Australians expect the country’s economy to have ‘good times’ economically, while 20% – down 1% – expect ‘bad times’.
A larger majority of Australians – 58%, up 2% – now say it is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items. But 18% (up 2%) of Australians say now is a ‘bad time to buy’ major household goods.
“Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence has increased for the second straight week after the major banks followed the lead of the RBA and cut interest rates on home loans,” said Gary Morgan, executive chairman of Roy Morgan Research.
He added: “Improving consumer confidence in October comes after a slight fall in September. Business confidence also fell in September although the improving consumer confidence gives hope of a rebound in October business confidence.”
Good news, but unsure if its actually true.
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Tim
Australia’s official measure of consumer confidence is the consumer sentiment index (JV between westpac and Melbourne uni). Is there any reason why you’re choosing to publish Roy Morgan’s attempt to get into this space rather than the ‘official’ (most widely recognized and established) thing??
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Curious, I am curious as to what makes Westpac/Melbourne Uni “official”. Could you please explain beyond “most widely recognized (sic) and established” (and in whose opinion)?
As far as I can tell Morgan have been tracking Consumer Confidence since 1973. I’m unsure as to how long Westpac/MU have been reporting – does it pre-date 1973? If not, how is Morgan attempting to get into this space?
And no, I do not, nor have ever worked for Morgan.
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Apologies … that should say “Morgan has: in the second paragraph. Me bad!
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… and that should read “Morgan has”. Rented fingers today.
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To ‘Curious’. Both measures are perfectly valid. The method used by the Westpac-MI survey is based on a measure originally developed in the US in the 1950s-60s. It has not been used for anywhere near that long in Australia, but some do question whether it’s an out of date approach. Roy Morgan’s method is more or less the same, but of course you’d expect some difference between the results of the too just because of different question wording.
“Official”? I’d lend that particular attribute if it was used by the ABS or other government bodies as ongoing policy measures, but in this case, take your pick 🙂
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