Australian Consumer Confidence Tumbles

Australian Westpac Consumer Confidence fell to 79.5 from 87.9 in August. Westpac comment in the accompanying note: "The scale of the fall comes as a major surprise. At 79.5, the Index is back near the extreme low of 75.6 seen back in April when Australia entered a national lockdown. Since the July survey we have seen Victoria enter Stage 4 restrictions and evidence of some 'hot spots' in New South Wales. Under those circumstances it is certainly reasonable to have expected a sizeable fall in Consumer Sentiment. However, collapsing to only 5.1% above the lows we saw in April when consumers were first confronted with a national lockdown may well prove to be a significant overreaction. The biggest surprise was in NSW where sentiment collapsed by 15.5% – well in excess of the 8.3% fall in Victoria. Remarkably, the index in NSW has reached 77.8, below Victoria's read of 78. Even in Queensland, where cases have been largely eliminated, there was a fall of 8.1% putting the index in Queensland at 79.7, only slightly above NSW and Victoria. The index in South Australia fell by 5.8% to 81.8 while only Western Australia was stable, falling by 1.5% to 85.9."