Japan: Consumer confidence in free fall in June
Consumer sentiment declined from 39.4 in May to 38.7 in June. The print represented the lowest reading since December 2014 and was below the 39.2 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 overall livelihood. Job prospects posted a smaller decline, while income growth was unchanged compared to the previous month. Regarding inflation, expectations of higher prices rose in June, with 87.9% of respondents expecting prices to trend higher (up 0.9 percentage points from last month’s survey).