Consumer confidence hovers around record lows

Consumer pessimism continues to hover around record lows, as rising interest rates, falling house prices and high inflation has given households very little to feel happy about.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index rose 1.4 points in July to 81.9, which is just above its record low.

A net 25 percent of households thought it was a terrible time to buy a major household item, which was a 4-point decline on the June result.

“Households are understandably worried, with strong inflation eating into budgets, interest rates higher, house prices falling, and uncertainty ongoing,” ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner said.

“But in aggregate we haven’t seen a big pull-back in spending, which likely reflects the fact that there are job vacancies everywhere you look, and wages are rising.”

The report follows yesterday’s survey of business sentiment, which revealed that firms were feeling less gloomy but still felt the pressures brought on by strong inflation, rising interest rates and labour shortages.

A net 16 percent of consumers were pessimistic about the current financial situation, which is a 6-point increase on a month ago, and a net 2 percent said they expected to be worse off in a year’s time.

Zollner said a split of the results by whether the respondents had mortgage debt or not shows that those with debt are, unsurprisingly, more worried about their current and future personal financial situations.

“So far, despite low confidence, spending has been holding up, presumably because with the labour market so tight, job security could hardly be better.”

Anecdotes suggest that consumers have not gone into saving mode, she said.

Consumers’ inflation expectations fell 0.7 points to 4.9 percent.

As a rule of thumb, if consumers expect prices to rise it makes it easier for businesses to lift their prices without the fear of losing market share.

Zollner said the RBNZ would be pleased to see inflation expectations fall to their lowest point in a year.

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