Consumer confidence rose slightly this month from last month, with public sentiment toward stock investment and economic outlook showing the most obvious improvement, a report released by National Central University yesterday said.
The consumer confidence index (CCI) gained 1.91 points this month to 62.47, the university’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development said in the report.
The index rose for the fourth consecutive month since August’s 53 points. It was 60.56 last month, the center’s tallies showed.
“This month’s report showed that the upward trend in consumer confidence has remained unchanged this year,” center director Hsu Chih-chiang (徐之強) said by telephone. “Clearly, people are now much more optimistic than they were eight or nine months ago, when the economy was hardest hit by global financial crisis.”
The CCI benchmark gauges public expectations concerning stock performance, household finances, durable goods, job opportunities, consumer price fluctuations and the economic outlook over the next six months. This month’s survey — which polled 2,388 people over the age of 20 nationwide between last Thursday and Sunday — showed improvements on all sub-indexes except consumer price outlook.
The report showed the commodity price sub-index dropped 0.95 point to 43.30, indicating that the public was still concerned about rises in raw material prices worldwide.
But the report indicated that public opinion was primarily upbeat about stock investments for the next six months, with its stock investment sub-index showing the biggest jump, by 3.80 points, to 89.
Just over 34 percent of respondents said they would invest in stocks, up from 31.8 percent last month, while 45.3 percent said they would avoid the market in the near future, down from 46.67 percent last month, the report said.
The TAIEX, however, fell 248.25 points, or 3.21 percent, to close at 7,490.91 yesterday, its lowest finish in three weeks as uncertainty about the fallout from Dubai’s financial trouble hurt the market.
“From a long-term perspective, the public sentiment toward stock investment usually showed a bigger fluctuation than other sub-indexes, affected primarily by breaking news at the time. The Dubai news may have some impact on next month’s survey if the global rout in stocks continues,” Hsu said.
Public confidence in the economic outlook for the next six months also rose this month, with the sub-index edging up 3.15 points to 56.70.
The positive sentiment came after the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Thursday that the economy contracted at its slowest pace in a year in the third quarter, at 1.29 percent year-on-year.
The government also raised its fourth-quarter forecast to a growth of 6.89 percent, from a 5.49 percent increase predicted in August, and revised its full-year forecast to a decline of 2.53 percent, from its previous forecast of a 4.04 percent contraction, the DGBAS said.
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