ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence increased 1.8 points to 78.2 this week.
The index has spent 38 straight weeks below the mark of 85, and is the second straight week below the mark of 80.
Consumer confidence is now 2.9 points below the same week a year ago and is now almost level with the 2023 weekly average of 78.1.
ANZ senior economist Adelaide Timbrell said this comes amid a lift in confidence around buying household items.
“The “time to buy a household item” index was at its strongest since early June, perhaps due to elevated discounting in the retail sector,” Timbrell said. “Inflation expectations jumped to their highest level since June amid elevated petrol prices, ahead of what we think will be a strong CPI print (+1.1% q/q).
“Confidence rose among outright homeowners (+2.3pts) and those paying off their homes (+3.6pts) but fell among the renters (-1.7pts).”
Looking around the states, consumer confidence improved in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia but decreased slightly in Queensland.
Driving this week’s increase were improvements in views of the Australian economy’s performance over the next year and next five years.
Now 18% (down 1ppt) say their families are ‘better off’ financially than this time last year compared to 53% (unchanged) that say their families are ‘worse off’.
Looking forward, 29% (up 1ppt) expect their family to be ‘better off’ financially this time next year while 36% (unchanged) expect to be ‘worse off’.
Only 8% (up 2ppts) of Australians expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next twelve months compared to 36% (down 1ppt) that expect ‘bad times’.
Over the next five years, Australians expecting ‘good times’ for the economy has lifted to 11%, (up 1ppt) compared to almost a fifth (19% - down 2ppts) expecting ‘bad times’.
Sentiment regarding buying intentions is relatively unchanged this week with 19% (up 1ppt) of Australians saying now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items while 50% (down 2ppts) say now is a ‘bad time to buy’.