Measured Consumer & Business Sentiment
Measured Consumer & Business Sentiment (21640) tracks two independently sourced sentiment indices — consumer confidence and business confidence — and their divergence from owner-occupier transaction volume, a proxy for whether stated sentiment is translating into actual market participation.
Primary metric: Canonical Sentiment-Behaviour Composite, Z-Score
Metric typology: equal-weighted two-index composite (consumer and business confidence), plus a secondary divergence scalar against transaction volume.
Consumer Sentiment Index (OECD, via FRED) and Business Sentiment Index (OECD, via FRED), quarterly, N=60. No commercial data dependency exists in the node.
Each bar is a Z-score for the June quarter 2026. Combined sentiment, −1.3994σ, is the average of consumer sentiment (−1.9078σ) and business sentiment (−0.8911σ). Sentiment divergence, the darker bar at −1.3349σ, is combined sentiment less owner-occupier transaction volume (−0.0645σ); a negative value means stated sentiment sits below owner-occupier transaction activity. The scale runs from −3σ to +3σ, and the grey line marks 0σ, the baseline average.
At −1.3994σ, combined sentiment sits well below its 2011–2025 baseline, its lowest reading since the March quarter 2023. Consumer confidence carries most of the movement: its April to June 2026 average of −18.67 is 1.91 standard deviations below the baseline mean of −3.33, while manufacturing business confidence, at 3.67, sits 0.89 standard deviations below its own. Owner-occupier transaction volume is close to its baseline average (−0.0645σ), so the Sentiment Divergence Scalar of −1.3349σ records stated sentiment running materially below actual market participation: reported confidence is weaker than current owner-occupier borrowing activity alone would suggest.
Position. 11.7, ranked against 207 quarters of the node’s record, from the December quarter 1974.
The other five components of Market Sentiment & Behavioural Analysis (21600).
Measured Consumer & Business Sentiment (21640) holds Active status. The certified composite Z-score is −1.3994σ (Q2 2026, N=60), and the certified Sentiment Divergence Scalar is −1.3349σ for the same period.
