Consumer confidence reaches six month high
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | 3 Comments
The consumer confidence level has increased at a fairly steady rate for a couple of months, but the numbers that came out today were much higher than anticipated as far as the increase goes. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index has a 14.1 point surge; increasing to 54.9 for the month of April. Economists were expecting a Confidence Index of 42.3. This comes just months after February’s lowest level ever of 25.3.
The consumer confidence interval is determined by a mail survey of a sample of 5,000 households in the United States from May 1st to May 19th.
The confidence interval increase means that many people are feeling more optimistic about the future of the economy including unemployment numbers. However, it is likely that the unemployment rate will hit just above 9% in the next month or two. It is nice to see that people think that things are getting better even when there are is a lot of grim news coming from economic indicators.
Today when the consumer confidence index rose, so did stocks. The Dow Industrial Average rose over 200 points, or 2.4 percent today after the news about consumer confidence came out.
The consumer confidence index began falling in October, when it fell to 38.8. At the time, it was the lowest number that had ever been seen since the Conference Board started tracking the confidence index.
This, by no means, means that people will begin throwing their money away on expensive clothing or other things that have been deemed “unnecessary” in the past few months. What was once just something that may have been a splurge is now seen as frivolous and is possibly frowned upon in some social circles.
Another reason that people aren’t spending their money on those things is that there aren’t as many jobs going around anymore and that the actual wealth going around is much less than it was even a year ago. With people having less and less money, I am actually pretty surprised that the consumer confidence index has risen. Perhaps people are getting so tired of the current economy that they are being overly optimistic on the surveys that are being sent out.
I mean, even this news is coming out in a positive light following the news last week that housing prices has fallen in the sharpest decline in the first quarter of the year.
In my optimistic point of view, perhaps this is the beginning of some sort of economic increase. If you follow the stock market, commodities market, and other indicators, then perhaps things are starting to pick up.
Related posts:Consumer confidence drops for October
Tags: dow industrial average, unemployment numbers, consumers


Dcrum | Wed, May 27 2009
I’m glad the economy is finally starting to follow a positive line. I’ve always known that it’s a great time to invest when the stock market was down, but for a while I was a little scared. With so many companies going out of business it seemed like there wasn’t too many safe places to put your money. Hopefully the worst is over!
Chris McClelland | Wed, May 27 2009
Investing has and always will be about putting your emotions aside and using a sound head, backed with solid numbers. While it can be difficult to invest while everyone is running for the doors, you can rest assured that every market has a cycle, you simply need the determination to see things through.
Don | Thu, May 28 2009
From your mouth to God’s ear. I’ll take any good news out there. I’d much prefer making money in a good economy than bad. But it seems every day more negative news comes out. The job figures are scary to say the least and I never thought I’d live to see the mortgage industry consist of Fannie, Freddie and FHA