Marktetwatch details:
An index of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to 60.6 in January, reaching the highest level since May, with more consumers optimistic about income and jobs, as well as current business conditions, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.Note that this does not mean consumers are confident, just that their confidence has improved. Taking a look at the details behind the index we see an improvement across the board, but from very low levels.
Bloomberg details:
Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly fell in April to the lowest level in five months, indicating Americans are discouraged about the labor market.
The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment dropped to 69.5 from a reading of 73.6 in March. The gauge was projected to rise to 75, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 69 economists.
Lagging confidence threatens to restrain household spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. While recent figures showed retail sales picked up in March, a 9.7 percent unemployment rate and mounting home foreclosures are risks for the recovery.
Marketwatch details:
Consumer sentiment improved sharply in early September, according to media reports on Friday of the Reuters/University of Michigan index. The consumer sentiment index rose to 70.2 from 65.7 in August. This is the first gain in the past three months.
The increase was above the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists who had expected sentiment to improve to 68.0. Economists expected sentiment to improve because of rising stock prices and a sense that the recession may be ending.
Washington Post details:
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index reported 46 percent of consumers called current business conditions in July "bad," a 1 percent increase from the month before. Consumers who reported jobs are "hard to get" jumped to 48 percent, an increase of about 3 percent from June.
"Consumer confidence, which had rebounded strongly in late spring, has faded in the last two months," said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center, in a news release. "The decline in the Present Situation Index was caused primarily by a worsening job market, as the percent of consumers claiming jobs are hard to get rose sharply."
Yeah, I didn't know what diffidence meant either...
Bloomberg reports:
Confidence among U.S. consumers slipped unexpectedly in June, reflecting a weak labor market.
The Conference Board’s sentiment index decreased to 49.3 from a revised 54.8 in May, the New York-based research group said today. The figure was still above a record low of 25.3 reached in February. Another report showed home prices fell at a slower pace in April than in the previous month.
“The optimism that started to build over the last few months may be starting to fade,” Michael Gregory, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, said before the report. “Labor markets are sort of stabilizing in terms of job losses, but the big issue is people are having a hard time finding a job.”
ABC News reports:
Americans' ratings of their personal finances have tumbled in the last six weeks to their lowest in 23 years of weekly polls, pushing overall consumer confidence to within a point of its worst ever.Actual... maybe you can't buy happiness, but it sure looks like you can buy "less misery".
Just 39 percent of Americans in this week's ABC News Consumer Comfort Index rate their own finances positively, down 13 points in six weeks – the biggest such drop on record – as spiking gas prices have added insult to recessionary injury.
U.S. consumer confidence rebounded in April to the highest levels since September before investors panicked about the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the global banking system's near implosion, a survey showed on Friday. The Reuters / University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary April reading of consumer sentiment rose to a level of 61.9, up from 57.3 in March and was the highest since 70.3 recorded in September.
