Chart of the Day: Here's proof that Singapore consumers are tightening their purses

Retail sales value was only around $3.5bn in September.

Singapore consumers are indeed tightening their purses with the current trend in the retail sector.

Although retail sales growth registered a reasonable 2.6% YoY growth for the first three quarters of 2016, the broader 6-month average trend is on the decline, not surprisingly with weaker visitor arrivals and a general cautiousness in the domestic market.

According to Maybank KimEng, various consumer confidence monitors for the Singapore market point to a material drop in consumer sentiment through 1H16.

One of such reports is the Mastercard IndexTM of Consumer Confidence, which reflected an outlook of ‘Pessimistic’ with a ‘Significant Deterioration’ of a 10.7- point drop over the previous half of the year.

"The study indicated that Singapore ranked second-lowest on the Index in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of overall consumer confidence," the firm noted.