Japan: Consumer confidence falls to an over three-year low in May
Consumer sentiment declined from 40.4 in April to 39.4 in May. The print represented the lowest reading since February 2016 and was below the 40.7 expected by market analysts. The consumer confidence index measures consumers’ expectations for the next six months on a scale of 0–100; a figure of 100 indicates that all respondents see their living standards improving.
Consumers were noticeably more pessimistic about their willingness to buy durable goods as well as their job prospects. Income growth and the overall livelihood category posted smaller declines. Regarding prices, expectations of higher prices fell in May, with 87.0% of respondents expecting prices to trend higher (down 0.7 percentage points from last month’s survey).