ANZ-Roy Morgan New Zealand Consumer Confidence down by 6.5pts to 98.0 in October - lowest for over a year

New Zealand Consumer confidence was down by 6.5pts to 98.0 in October, with both perceptions of current conditions and expectations down sharply.

• The proportion of people who believe it is a good time to buy a major household item didn’t rebound from last month’s 20-point fall – it remained at -7.
• Inflation expectations went ballistic, rising more than 1% to 6.2%. House price inflation expectations lifted from 6.1% to 6.7%.

Turning to the detail:

• Perceptions of current financial situations fell 10 points to -3%.

• A net 20% expect to be better off this time next year, down 4.

• A net 7% think it is a bad time to buy a major household item, unchanged and showing last month’s 20-point plummet was not a rogue outturn. This is the best retail indicator in the survey.

• Perceptions regarding the next year’s economic outlook fell 12 points to -25%. The five-year outlook fell 8 points to +4%.

• House price inflation expectations lifted 0.6%pts to 6.7%. They rose most in Wellington, while the only region to fall was Auckland.

• CPI inflation expectations soared from 5.1% to 6.2%, likely influenced by media coverage around the CPI outturn. Households have been pretty smart about inflation in the past 18 months, and what they think matters hugely for both firms’ pricing power and wage negotiations.

Households’ response to whether it was a good time to buy a major household item failed to rebound from its plunge in September. Some of this may be lockdown impacts, but in the past two months there’s been a sharp drop everywhere but Wellington.