September shows marked improvement in consumer confidence

OTTAWA – The Conference Board of Canada says consumer confidence showed improvement this month, following a weak showing in August.

The Ottawa-based economic forecaster says its Index of Consumer Confidence increased 6.7 points to 82.2.

That’s still below where it was 10 years ago when the benchmark was reset at 100.

But the Conference Board says its September survey indicates Canadian consumers were generally the most confident in more than a year.

It says the monthly survey had its best overall showing since July 2011.

The survey was based on more than 2,000 telephone interviews conducted in early September.

On the question of current finances, 18.4 per cent of the respondents said their situation had improved over the past six months — up two percentage points from the August survey.

By comparison, there was a smaller percentage of respondents who said their situation had gotten worse over the past six months — falling 3.7 percentage points to 17.6 per cent.

“This marks only the second time in the past two years that positive responses have outnumbered negative ones on this question,” the Conference Board said.

Regarding future finances, 25.2 per cent of respondents said they expected an improvement over the next six months — an increase of 1.2 percentage points.

Only 15.6 per cent of respondents said they expected their financial situation to worsen, a decline of 1.7 percentage points since August.

“The balance of opinion remains firmly positive on this question (as it has for more than 10 years now), with the balance in this latest survey coming in slightly above the average of the last two years,” the group said.