Australia’s weekly consumer confidence edges marginally higher on optimism towards economic conditions

Australia’s ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence was up marginally last week, gaining 0.6 percent. Financial conditions sub-indices were mixed, with current finances down 1.3 percent and future finances up by 4.8 percent.

The recovery in future finances reversed much of last week’s 5.3 percent drop. The economic conditions sub-indices were positive. Current economic conditions were up 0.9 percent and future economic conditions gained 0.5 percent.

The ‘time to buy a household item’ partially retraced the previous week’s gain, falling 2.1 percent. Four week moving average inflation expectations were stable at 4 percent.

"Confidence has been hovering around the same level for the last few weeks. A softening in the tension on US-China trade deals may have supported sentiment. Domestically, the numbers from the capex print were encouraging though they weren’t strong enough to offset some of the other indicators suggesting a soft GDP print for Q4. There is a lot out this week, with the RBA statement and Q4 GDP report the most notable. There is some prospect that Q4 GDP could be negative, which might be a blow to consumer sentiment in the week ahead. The continued resilience in consumer confidence suggests the recent slowing in GDP growth has not yet impacted the labour market to a material extent. We think whether it does or not will be the key to the outlook and the stance of the RBA," said David Plank, ANZ’s Head of Australian Economics.