ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increases for fifth straight week, up 0.7pts to 95.7 – driven by increases in Melbourne & Adelaide

ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 0.7pts to 95.7 on October 3/4, 2020 and is now 16.6pts lower than a year ago on the comparable weekend of October 5/6, 2019 (112.3) and is now above the 2020 weekly average of 93.8.

Consumer Confidence has now increased for fifth straight weeks and is up 5.5pts since ending August at 90.2. Driving this week’s small increase was more confidence about people’s personal financial situation compared to this time a year ago.

Current financial conditions

• Now 25% (up 1ppt) of Australians say their families are ‘better off’ financially than this time last year and 34% (down 1ppt) say their families are ‘worse off’ financially.

Future financial conditions

• In addition, 33% (unchanged) of Australians expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year compared to 18% (unchanged) that expect to be ‘worse off’ financially.

Current economic conditions

• An unchanged 8% of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next 12 months while 38% (also unchanged), expect ‘bad times’.

Future economic conditions

• In the longer term, a fifth, 20% (unchanged) of Australians are expecting ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next five years compared to 17% (down 1ppt) expecting ‘bad times’.

Time to buy a major household item

• Australians are almost evenly split on whether now is the time to purchase major household items with a decreasing proportion of Australians, 35% (up 1ppt), saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items, while 36% (up 1ppt), say now is a ‘bad time to buy’.

“Continued improvement in the local news around the pandemic and talk of early tax cuts and other fiscal measures in the Budget led to a gain in consumer confidence for the fifth straight week. Consumers are still pessimistic, but confidence is at its highest level since June. Melbourne saw a sharp uptick in confidence as the removal of the curfew helped in lifting sentiment, although it is still 8.6% below the neutral level of 100. Today’s announcement on the fiscal details will heavily influence the direction of the index in the coming weekend.”