The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment fell by 5.6% to 90.4 in May from 95.8 in April. The Index is now at its lowest level since August 2020 when households were unnerved by the ‘second wave’ lockdown in Victoria. The weakness in this survey is not related to another pandemic shock but to the combination of rising cost of living pressures and the prospect of rising interest rates. Excluding the shocks to confidence associated with the pandemic, this fall of 5.6% is the largest since a 6.9% fall in June 2015, when a steep fall in global share markets was triggered by concerns about the stability ... (full story)