ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence drops 1.4pts to 106.0 as ‘Omicron variant’ emerges in southern Africa

• Now 27% (down 2ppts) of Australians say their families are ‘better off’ financially than this time last year compared to 29% (up 3ppts), that say their families are ‘worse off’ financially.

Future financial conditions

• An unchanged plurality of 37% of Australians expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year, compared to 17% (unchanged) that expect to be ‘worse off’ financially.

Current economic conditions

• Now 18% (unchanged), of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months compared to 20% (unchanged), that expect ‘bad times’.

Future economic conditions

• In the longer term, under a fifth of Australians, 16% (down 4ppts), are expecting ‘good times’ for the economy over the next five years (the lowest figure for this indicator for well over a year since August 2020) compared to 18% (up 3ppts) expecting ‘bad times’.

Time to buy a major household item

• However, in good news for retailers, buying intentions increased this week, with 42% (up 3ppts) of Australians, saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items (the highest figure for this indicator since early July 2021) while 26% (down 2ppts) say now is a ‘bad time to buy’ (the lowest figure for this indicator for well over four months since early July 2021).

"Consumer confidence fell 1.3% for the last weekend of November compared to the prior weekend. News of Omicron likely impacted sentiment, with some new restrictions for international travellers being quickly imposed. Only 16.3% of respondents expect ‘good times’ for the economy over the next five years, the lowest since August 2020. Despite the overall dampened outlook, ‘time to buy major household items’ rose to its highest since early July 2021. As well, confidence in ‘financial conditions’ is holding up quite well. Weekly inflation expectations rose 0.2ppt to 4.8% but stayed below its recent high despite petrol prices surging 3.6% in the past two weeks."