Traffic from cars, vans and motorbikes fell in August, reinforcing softer spending signals from ANZ’s card transaction data.<\/p>\n
Traffic volumes weakened in August, adding to signs households may be pulling back spending as fuel prices rise.<\/p>\n
The bank said its Light Traffic Index, which tracks cars, vans and motorbikes, was often an early indicator of consumer spending and broader demand in the economy. It can provide a signal of changes in household activity several months before they are reflected in official economic data.<\/p>\n
Heavy traffic, mostly trucks and buses, fell 2.2 percent during August, although it remained 1.3 percent higher than a year earlier.<\/p>\n
ANZ said its Heavy Traffic Index was commonly used as a gauge of production and wider economic activity because it captures freight movements linked to manufacturing, retail trade and exports.<\/p>\n
Chief economist Sharon Zollner said light traffic had been “noticeably lower in recent months”, likely reflecting people choosing to drive less as fuel prices increased.<\/p>\n
She said the weakness mirrored the softer spending seen in ANZ’s latest card transaction data, suggesting households were becoming more cautious.<\/p>\n
However, Zollner said weather may also have been a factor. She said a series of winter storms during August may have disrupted both road use and freight movements.<\/p>\n
ANZ said the heavy traffic reading was also weaker than expected, although the series can be volatile from month to month.<\/p>\n
The bank said it would be watching September’s data closely to determine whether the August weakness was a temporary interruption from poor weather, or potentially signs of a more sustained slowdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Traffic from cars, vans and motorbikes fell in August, reinforcing softer spending signals from ANZ’s card transaction data.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-595928","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\/595928","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=595928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}