Australia NAB Business Confidence dropped sharply to -14 in July, down from June’s 0. Business Conditions improved to 0, up from -8. Trading conditions turned position to 1 (up from -6), while profitability rose to 2 (up from -8). Employment also improved from -11 to -2 but stayed negative.
The survey was conducted prior to stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne as confidence already deteriorated of fear of the spread of the coronavirus. Alan Oster, NAB Group Chief Economist said, “while the improvement in conditions is very welcome, capacity utilisation and forward orders point to ongoing weakness overall. Therefore, with confidence still fragile there is some risk that conditions lose some of their recent gains in coming months.
