Consumer confidence is continuing to climb out of a hole, and is back up to similar levels seen before the Middle East conflict began in February.<\/p>\n
The latest ANZ-Roy Morgan NZ Consumer Confidence Survey shows consumer confidence rose to 99.3 in July, up 8 points from 91.3 in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ANZ economists Sharon Zollner and Matt Dilly said while consumer confidence in July was still 8 points below its January peak \u2013 before the Middle East conflict began \u2013 it was 19 points off its April low.<\/p>\n
\u201cA sharp bounce in consumer confidence this month is very welcome, but it was unsurprising to see confidence ease again late in the month,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
The future conditions index, which is made up of forward-looking questions, jumped up 9.8 points to 106.5. It\u2019s the first time this index has passed the 100 mark since February.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The current conditions index also improved, lifting 5.3 points to 88.5.<\/p>\n
The ANZ-Roy Morgan NZ Consumer Confidence Survey measures the results of a set of five questions asked monthly of a random phone sample of over 1,000 people.<\/p>\n
In the July survey, perceptions regarding the economic outlook over the next 12 months lifted from -23% to -13%, its strongest read since February.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The five-year-ahead measure rose 9 points to 12%, its strongest reading since the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n
Two-year-ahead inflation expectations were flat at 4.6% in the July survey. Inflation expectations are currently at the same levels they were at before the Middle East conflict began in February.<\/p>\n
Perceptions of current personal financial situations \u201cimproved markedly\u201d from -23% to -16% in the July survey. This is the strongest result since March.<\/p>\n
Looking forward, a net 10% of respondents expect to be better off this time next year, up 11 points and the strongest reading since January.<\/p>\n
The proportion of households who think it\u2019s a good time to buy a major household item edged down 4 points to -7, which remains subdued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDevelopments in the Middle East will continue to buffet both business and consumer confidence as long as the situation remains volatile,\u201d Zollner and Dilly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question for retailers is whether people adapt to the uncertainty and to some extent lose interest, or whether it will cause a persistent hit to spending above and beyond the cashflow impact of more expensive fuel prices. It\u2019s a case of \u2018watch this space\u2019.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumer confidence is continuing to climb out of a hole, and is back up to similar levels seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-552496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}