Australia NAB business confidence and business conditions for September
Business confidence 13
- prior -5
Business conditions 5, a big drop. 'Conditions' is a more objective measure than confidence, so this takes a lot of the shine from the big jump in confidence.
prior 14
Via the NAB report, you can see the objective measures in these bullet points slumped, dragging conditions down.
- sales down 10 point to +10
- profitability down 13 points to +2
- employment index down 8 points to +1
- Capacity utilisation 78.4% (from 80.1% in August) ... "There was a large hit to capacity utilisation in September which is now well down from its pre-lockdown peak. That is a further sign of the significant slack in the economy as everyone waits for lockdowns to come to an end."
Commentary (in brief)
- Businesses are really looking forward to reopening, and confidence increased markedly on the back of NSW and Victoria's reopening roadmaps
- Still, confidence is more about hope for the future than what is happening in the present
- On that front, conditions really deteriorated which shows that lockdowns are taking a toll, despite the resilience the economy has shown
- With NSW achieving its 70% vaccination target and further thresholds expected to be achieved in coming weeks, the economy is well placed to recover in October and November as activity is allowed to restart
AUD is barely moved, stumbling along on its session lows:
