National Australia Bank Business survey for July 2020 - I did a double-take on that (lack of) confidence result
The NAB survey was taken prior to Australia's second-largest city of Melbourne being plunged into 'stage 4' lockdown (survey conducted July 22-31).
Alan Oster, chief economist at NAB
- "The most significant deterioration in confidence occurred in New South Wales and Victoria, where concerns around the spread of the virus were escalating"
- "While conditions have seen a notable improvement, it may reflect activity coming off a low base -- forward orders saw only a marginal improvement and remain very weak"
- "businesses will remain very cautious given the great uncertainty"
- " the business sector will require ongoing support through the recovery phase until the economy can get back on its feet"
On conditions:
- Trading 1 (+7 points)
- Profitability 2 (+10)
- Employment -2 (+9)
If there is a brighter point to make on these results its that 'conditions' tend to be a more objective measure than 'confidence' … and conditions did improve. To zero, yeah, but still, better than the prior -7 … make that -8, the revised conditions number for the previous month.
