Confidence up after fires ease

AUSTRALIAN consumer sentiment has improved slightly in February as the threat from bushfires eased across the eastern seaboard, though concerns over the spread of the coronavirus outbreak in China and globally loom as a fresh headwind.

Yesterday’s survey results showed the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank index of consumer sentiment rose 2.3 per cent in February, from January when it fell 1.8 per cent. The index was still down 8 per cent from a year earlier and at 95.5 indicated pessimists continued to outnumber optimists.