Consumer confidence, the Westpac-McDermott Miller index, rose to 87.6 in the third quarter survey
- Q2 was worse at 78.7
Westpac New Zealand's Senior Economist Satish Ranchhod comment (via Reuters report):
- "Consumer confidence is sitting around the sorts of lows that we saw during the recession in the early-1990s and during the 2008/09 Global Financial Crisis"
- household finances are being squeezed by high consumer prices and increases in borrowing costs
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For the Westpac-McDermott Miller consumer confidence index a reading above 100 indicates more optimists than pessimists. And vice versa.
New Zealand dollar was volatile, like everything else, over the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcement Wednesday:
