Singapore's consumer sentiment rebounds from pessimism

This came with the general outlook improvement seen in Asia Pacific.

Singapore's consumer sentiment has recovered from the negative territory, thanks to the bullish outlook on the stock market.

According to the latest Mastercard Index of Consumer Confidence, sentiment in the Lion City saw more than a 15-point improvement to 45.4 points, moving from pessimistic into neutral territory.

Mastercard said this is due to the bullish outlook on the stock market and employment seen across Asia Pacific.

For the whole region, consumer sentiment stays buoyed in the optimistic territory at 66.9 points, a slight improvement from 62.7 points six months ago.

Boosted by heightened expectations in its economic performance, South Korea has recorded the largest improvement in consumer confidence in Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, India continues to stay in the optimistic territory at 86.0 points, despite posting the region's largest decline of 9.3 points. Consumer sentiment also saw a slight deterioration of 6 points in Myanmar. According to the Index, pessimism towards Quality of Life was the key driver of decline for both India and Myanmar.

Between April and June 2017, 9153 respondents, aged 18 to 64 in 18 Asia Pacific markets, were asked to give a six-month outlook on five economic factors, namely, the economy, employment prospects, regular Income prospects, stock market and quality of life. The Index is calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, with zero as the most pessimistic, 100 as the most optimistic and between 40 and 60 as neutral.