REOPENINGS REVIVE CONFIDENCE

As provinces move further ahead with their reopening plans, consumer confidence is following along. The Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, a weekly composite measure of financial health and economic expectations, jumped to 45.4 last week from 42.9 a week earlier. That’s the largest weekly gain since 2013. “Consumer sentiment expectations on the Canadian economy are on the rise with a U-shaped trend line beginning to emerge,” said Nik Nanos, chief data scientist, in the report. “Perceptions of the future strength of the Canadian economy — although still net negative — have improved 10 points in the last four weeks.” Sentiment has now been rising for eight straight weeks. Despite the uptick, sentiment will likely take a long time to get back where they were PRE-COVID. In January and February, confidence levels averaged about 56.