Summary: Household sentiment deteriorates in February; cost of living pressures, interest rate rises “weigh heavily”; consumers expect “substantial” rate rises; all sub-indices lower; more respondents expecting higher jobless rate. After a lengthy divergence between measures of consumer sentiment and business confidence in Australia which began in 2014, confidence readings of the two sectors converged again in mid-July 2018. Both measures then deteriorated gradually in trend terms, with consumer confidence leading...