Consumer Confidence Continues to Grow

Courtesy of NAHB

Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index continued to improve in February, increasing 5.6 points to 70.4. The index has grown strongly over the past five months from its recent low of 48.6 in September. The improvement has been driven mainly by robust growth in the future expectations index, which rose 7.8 points to 95.1 in February. The present situation index remains weak though improving, with a 2.3 point increase to 33.4.

Conference Board advised the survey questions and collection method remain unchanged and the transition should have a limited effect on most series. A pilot test of the new sample design yielded a 4.5 point divergence on average over the five month period, which they attributed to the use of the age variable in the post-stratification weighting. Given the divergence, a level of care should be applied in trend and year-over-year analysis across the transition period (i.e. before and after November 2010).

Consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions improved moderately, but still remains weak. There was a small rise in the share of respondents who viewed current business conditions as good, up 1.1 percentage points to 12.4 percent, while the share of those who viewed conditions as bad remained steady at 39.6 percent. Similarly, those who viewed jobs as plentiful rose 0.3 of a percentage point to 4.9 percent, while those believing jobs are hard to get were down 1.3 percentage points to 45.7 percent.

- Courtesy of NAHB