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Title: Consumer Comfort in U.S. Climbed to Four-Year High U.S. Consumer Confidence Rises to a Four-Year High, Bloomberg Index Shows
Source:
Bloomberg
URL Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012- ... -four-year-high-last-week.html
Published: Apr 5, 2012
Author: Alex Kowalski
Post Date: 2012-04-05 11:07:31 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 734
Comments: 1
Consumer confidence climbed last week to the highest level in four years as brighter job prospects and an advancing stock market bolstered Americans’ view of the economy.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index (COMFCOMF) rose to minus 31.4 in the period ended April 1, the best reading since March 2008, from minus 34.7 the prior week. All three of its components, the economy, personal finances and buying plans, advanced.
Employers probably took on more than 700,000 workers in the first three months of this year, the best quarter for job growth since 2006, a report tomorrow may show, while equities rallied the most since 1998. The improvements may support consumer spending in the face of rising gasoline prices.
“Sustained gains in the equity market are clearly bolstering confidence among upper-income households that are critical to overall personal consumption,” said Joseph Brusuelas, a senior economist at Bloomberg LP in New York. Middle-income households may also be seeing a “mini wealth effect” as their retirement accounts climb in value, he said.
First-time filings for jobless benefits declined last week to the lowest level in four years, another report showed today. Unemployment claims dropped by 6,000 to 357,000 in the week ended March 31, the Labor Department said.
Stocks fell as a decline in Spanish bonds raised concern the euro area has yet to contain its debt crisis. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.3 percent to 1,394.82 at 9:34 a.m. in New York. Personal Finances
The Bloomberg measure of Americans’ views of the state of the economy rose to minus 63.6, also the best reading since March 2008, from minus 66.7 the prior week. The personal finances gauge broke into positive territory, climbing to 3.4, the highest level since July. The index of whether consumers consider it a good time to buy rose to minus 33.9 from minus 37.
Other gauges of consumers’ outlooks have also exhibited strength. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s final index of consumer sentiment rose last month to the highest level since February 2011.
“Confidence is critical,” Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, chief economist at Ford Motor Co. (F), said April 3 on a conference call with analysts. Recent data show “consumers are pointing to the job prospects. Confidence is sort of keying off the job numbers in some sense.”
Cars and light trucks sold at a 14.3 million annual rate in March, capping the strongest quarter in four years, according to data from Ward’s Automotive Group. Employment Report
Payrolls grew by 227,000 in February, capping the best six- month streak of job growth since 2006, Labor Department data showed last month. A report tomorrow will probably show employment increased by 205,000 in March, according to the median forecast in a survey of economists by Bloomberg News.
Rising stock values have also probably buoyed sentiment. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 12 percent during the first quarter, including a 3.1 percent increase in March. It marked the strongest three-month start to a year since a 13.5 percent advance in the first quarter of 1998.
Among households earning more than $100,000 per year, sentiment climbed to 10.2, the strongest since December 2010. Democrats’ confidence rose to minus 25.2, and that of political independents increased to minus 29.1, both the best since 2007.
With a better labor market, more confidence and higher stock values, household spending climbed in February by the most in seven months. Purchases rose 0.8 percent, Commerce Department data showed last week. Gasoline Prices
“The Bloomberg index’s positive run is all the more impressive because it’s occurred in tandem with steadily rising gasoline prices,” Gary Langer, president of Langer Research Associates LLC in New York, which compiles the index for Bloomberg, said in a statement.
The average price of regular gasoline at the pump climbed to a 10-month high of $3.94 a gallon yesterday, according to AAA, the nation’s largest motoring club. It has risen 66 cents, or 20 percent, since the year began.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index is based on responses to telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,000 consumers aged 18 and over. Each week, 250 respondents are asked for their views on the economy, personal finances and buying climate; the percentage of negative responses is subtracted from the share of positive views and divided by three. The most recent reading is based on the average of responses over the previous four weeks.
The comfort index can range from 100, indicating every participant in the survey had a positive response to all three components, to minus 100, signaling all views were negative. The margin of error for the headline reading is 3 percentage points.
Field work for the index is done by SSRS/Social Science Research Solutions in Media, Pennsylvania.
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Consumer confidence climbed last week to the highest level in four years as brighter job prospects and an advancing stock market bolstered Americans’ view of the economy.
The economy is WONDERFUL, re-elect Obama!
We're NOT in a global economic depression!
Baghdad Bri-bri
To: mcToejam, rat-boy, drippy, Alzheimer Fred, whitesands, t-bird, loonymom, ming, e-type jackoff, goober56, wreck, cal-CON, rabid dog, dummy DwarF, biff, harrowup the communist, and meguro. You're on the "a waste of human flesh" list. Brian S[ocialist], you're a propagandist moron. ALL of you can piss off.
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