Recent Updates
- Georgia: Wholesale/Retail Trade (Q4)
- India: Mutual Funds (Feb), FDI (Q4)
- Norway: International Reserves (Feb-Prelim)
- Denmark: Bankruptcies by Industry (Feb)
- Belarus: International Reserves (Feb)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Rise Just 9,000
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose modestly by 9,000 to 745,000 in the week ended February 27...
U.S. Productivity's Decline Lessened in Q4'20; Reverses Q3 Increase
Revisions to nonfarm business sector productivity indicated a 4.2% decline during Q4'20...
EMU Unemployment Rate Steadies in January
The overall EMU unemployment rate was steady in January, off peak, but still elevated...
U.S. ADP Nonfarm Private Payroll Increase Disappoints in February
Job market strength moderated last month....
U.S. ISM Services Index Weakens in February
The ISM Composite Index of Services Activity declined to 55.3 during February...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller August 30, 2005
The Conference Board's August index of Consumer Confidence posted a 1.9% m/m increase to 105.6 following a 2.4% July decline that was shallower than initially reported.
Consensus expectations had been for a decline to 101.4 in sympathy with the 7.7% m/m decline in consumer sentiment reported last week by the University of Michigan.
During the last twenty years there has been a 52% correlation between the level of consumer confidence and the y/y change in real consumer spending. The correlation rose to 66% during the last ten years.
Consumers' assessment of the present situation rose 3.6% m/m to the highest level since 2001. Jobs were viewed as hard to get by 23.2% of survey participants, down slightly m/m, but the 29.8% of participants who thought that business conditions were good was a further improvement on earlier strong readings.
Consumer expectations gained back 0.5% (-3.7% y/y) of a sharp 3.3% decline in July.
The Conference Boards survey isconducted by a mailed questionnaire to 5,000 households and about 3,500 typically respond.
Conference Board | August | July | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Consumer Confidence | 105.6 | 103.6 | 7.0% | 96.1 | 79.8 | 96.6 |