Australian Consumer Confidence Drops To Recessionary Levels
The percentage of respondents who expect good times for the economy over the next five years dropped to 10%.
The percentage of respondents who expect good times for the economy over the next five years dropped to 10%.
Australian consumer confidence dropped 7.6% last week to the lowest levels since the economy experienced a damaging recession at the start of the 1990s, according to a survey by ANZ Bank and pollster Roy Morgan.
ANZ head of Australian economics David Plank said news of a 50 basis-point rise in official interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia last week surprised many and sharply dented confidence.
Confidence is at its lowest since early April 2020, during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Outside of the pandemic, consumer confidence hasn’t been this low since January 1991, the midst of the early 1990s recession, Mr Plank added.
Reflecting the dire state of sentiment, the percentage of respondents who expect good times for the economy over the next five years dropped to 10%, its lowest level on record, he said.
So far this year household spending has been resilient despite the softness in consumer confidence. The RBA, for one, will be looking closely to see whether this divergence can continue, Mr Plank added.
Weekly inflation expectations decreased 0.1 percentage point to 5.6%, while its four-week moving average was unchanged at 5.5%, the survey showed.
Sentiment around current financial conditions dropped 1.0%, while future financial conditions fell 10.1%. Current economic conditions declined 7.2% after a 9.4% loss the week before. Future economic conditions were down 4.6%, according to the survey.
Consumers also reported a 14.4% drop in their willingness to buy a major household item.
The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence Rating is based on 1,454 interviews conducted online and over the telephone during the week to Sunday.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: June 15, 2022.
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An original watercolour illustration for the cover of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 1997 — the first book in J.K. Rowling’s hit series—could sell for US$600,000 at a Sotheby’s auction this summer.
The illustration is headlining a June 26 sale in New York that will also feature big-ticket items from the collection of the late Dr. Rodney P. Swantko, a surgeon and collector from Indiana, including manuscripts by poet Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books
The Harry Potter illustration, which introduced the young wizard character to the world, is expected to sell for between US$400,000 to US$600,000, which would make it the highest-priced item ever sold related to the Harry Potter world. This is the second time the illustration has been sold, however—it was on the auction block at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, where it achieved £85,750 (US$107,316).
The artist of the illustration, Thomas Taylor, was 23 years old at the time and a graduate student working at a children’s bookshop. According to Sotheby’s, Taylor took a “professional commission from an unknown author to visualise a unique wizarding world,” Sotheby’s said in a news release. He depicted Harry Potter boarding the train to Hogwarts on platform9 ¾ platform, and the illustration became the “universal image” of the Harry Potter series, Sotheby’s said.
“It is exciting to see the painting that marks the very start of my career, decades later and as bright as ever! It takes me back to the experience of reading Harry Potter for the first time—one of the first people in the world to do so—and the process of creating what is now an iconic image,” Taylor said in the release.
Meanwhile, to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s For Annie , 1849, Sotheby’s recently reunited the autographed manuscript of the poem with the author’s home, Poe Cottage, in the Bronx.
The cottage is where the author lived with his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, from 1846 until he died in 1849. The manuscript, also from the Swantko collection, will remain at the home until it is offered at auction at Sotheby’s on June 26 with an estimate between US$400,000 and US$600,000.
Poe Cottage, preserved and overseen by the Bronx County Historical Society, is home to many of the author’s famous works, including Eureka , 1948, and Annabel Lee , 1927.
“To reunite the For Annie manuscript with the Poe Cottage nearly two centuries after it was first composed brought to life literary history for a truly special and unique occasion,” Richard Austin , Sotheby’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts, said in a news release.
For Annie was one of Poe’s most important compositions, and was addressed to Nancy “Annie” L. Richmond, one of the several women Poe pursued after his wife Viriginia’s death from tuberculosis in 1847.
In a letter to Richmond herself, Poe proclaimed For Annie was his best work: “I think the lines For Annie much the best I have ever written.”
The poem was composed in 1849, only months before Poe’s death, Sotheby’s said in the piece, Poe highlights the romantic comfort he feels from a woman named Annie while simultaneously grappling with the darkness of death, with lines like “And the fever called ‘living’ is conquered at last.”
In the margins of the manuscript are the original handwritten instructions by Nathaniel P. Willis, co-editor of the New York Home Journal, where Poe published other poems such as The Raven and submitted For Annie on April 20, 1849.
Willis added Poe’s name in the top right and instructions about printing and presenting the poem on the side. The poem was also published in the Boston Weekly that same month.
Another piece of literary history included in the Swantko sale could surpass US$1 million. Conan Doyle’s autographed manuscript of the Sherlock Holmes tale The Sign of Four , 1889, is estimated to achieve between US$800,000 and US$1.2 million.
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