Australian weekly consumer confidence rises again

The Australian weekly consumer confidence rises again. The latest ANZ Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence rose a bit by 0.9 percent to 119 from the previous week’s reading. The result came in mixed, with two of five sub-indices indicating declines. Confidence about current economic conditions stayed strong with a rise of 5.1 percent on a weekly basis. Future economic sentiment rose 0.9 percent, after a solid rise of 6 percent in the earlier reading. Both indices continue to be above or close to their long run averages.

Households’ views about financial situations deteriorated slightly after solid readings over the previous week. The future financial situation sub-index dropped 0.7 percent, while current financial conditions fell 1 percent to 109.3. Confidence around the ‘time to buy a household item’ finally picked up, rising 0.7 percent to 134.4 after six straight weekly falls to end up above the long run average. Inflation expectations continued to be flat at 4.5 percent on a four-week basis.

“There is a lot of local data out this week that could impact sentiment, particularly the GDP report for the final quarter of 2017. It will also be interesting to see whether the lift in consumer sentiment over January translated into a solid start to 2018 for retailers, with retail sales figures for January out today”, stated ANZ’S Head of Australian Economics, David Plank.

At 13:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Australian Dollar was highly bullish at 124.577, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was highly bearish at -112.42. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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