Consumer confidence reached 80.18 this month, the first upswing in five months, buoyed by a sharp increase in stock investment interest amid ongoing rallies in local shares, a survey by National Central University (NCU) showed yesterday.
“It is not clear whether the rebound in stock investment confidence is to be sustained, as the gauge tends to be volatile and in line with the TAIEX’s performance,” said Dachrahn Wu (吳大任), director of the university’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development, which conducted the survey.
The stock investment sub-index this month gained 11.9 points to 73.1, advancing at the fastest pace since the launch of the survey in 2001, after the TAIEX rose above the 9,000-point mark, Wu said.
Wu attributed the rallies to global fund flows after the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged and Britain voted to leave the EU. The dividend payout season in Taiwan also helped attract foreign funds, he said.
The liquidity-driven rallies led the public to feel more wealthy and confident about the economy in the absence of support from economic fundamentals, the survey said.
The sub-index on the economic outlook this month picked up 0.6 points to 73.6, while the constituent measure on household income rose by 0.45 points to 78.9, according to the survey.
The survey also showed that the reading on employment outlook reported the biggest fall among sub-indices of 1.3 points to 110.8 and the sub-index on inflation expectations logged 55.2, down 0.65 points from last month.
The sub-index on durable goods consumption shed 0.05 points to 89.5, it showed.
The survey, which polled 2,420 people by telephone between Wednesday last week and Sunday, had a confidence level of 95 percent. Confidence scores higher than 100 indicate upbeat sentiment and values below the threshold suggest pessimism.
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