Yesterday we had dreadful Australian consumer confidence reported from Roy Morgan:

Now this. Australian Business Confidence is now 22.1pts below the long-term average of 112.3

From the report:

  • only 38.7% of businesses (down 3.1ppts) expect the business will be ‘better off’ financially this time next year – the lowest figure for this indicator for four years since April 2019 – although this is the only indicator still in positive territory with optimists exceeding pessimists.
  • Just over a quarter of businesses, 27.7%, up 0.6ppts, expect to be ‘worse off’ financially in a year’s time.
  • In contrast, businesses are most worried about the performance of the Australian economy over the next year with 60.1% expecting ‘bad times’ for the economy over the next year compared to only 37.4% expecting ‘good times’ – a net negative of 22.7% points in April.
Australia business confidence 10 May 2023

Earlier from National Australia Bank's survey: