The ANZ-Roy Morgan NZ Consumer Confidence Rating slipped a touch from last week to 121.8 (down 1.8pts).

There is more optimism about the current situation and less about future prospects.

The largest drop in forward looking questions was in expectations about the economy in general in 12 months time, which dropped 9 points to 120.

The chart shows that there is a “relationship” between consumer confidence and retail trade.

Like most relationships in life, they are not perfectly coordinated, but it’s not a bad fit, although oddly confidence seems to lag behind spending.

Perhaps that is a “must be feeling good, cause look at all this stuff we’ve bought” justification….

Anyway, the point is what happens now ?

Retail trade has led confidence back up, but growth in sales has looked a bit weak and has not kept rising to the 1.75% levels of 2006 and 2007.

Is confidence going to turn back down ?

Or has the “relationship” changed, and it is now a case of the “sure I feel confident, but isn’t the world a bit scarier now, so lets pop that penny in the jar” syndrome ?

Time and perhaps the retail trade numbers on 31 March will tell.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Tags: consumer confidence, retail sale

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 10:21 am and is filed under consumer sentiment, retail trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.