A litany of cost-of-living factors has dragged Australian consumer sentiment down to recession-levels. However, all the bad news hasn’t actually impacted retail spending, according to AMP’s deputy chief economist Diana Mousina. In fact, as Mousina revealed, consumer sentiment is no longer used by AMP’s economists to forecast retail spending patterns. We used to use consumer sentiment as a part of our forecast for retail spending, but we don’t anymore because it doesn’t correlate at all. “Look at the consumer spending numbers and people still spending on discretionary areas.