The Conference Board today announced that its Consumer Confidence Index edged down in October, to 105.4 points (1985=100), after rising in September to 105.9.
The board said its Present Situation Index also decreased, to 124.7 points, from September’s 128.3, but the Expectations Index rose to 92.6 points from last month’s 91.0.
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The monthly Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households; it is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, the world’s largest custom research company. The cutoff date for this month’s preliminary results was Oct. 24.
“October’s dip in confidence was prompted by consumers’ mixed assessment of present-day business conditions and a less favorable view of the job market,” said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center. “Consumers’ short-term expectations posted a slight improvement, but the outlook for the labor market remains mixed.
“Overall, this month’s readings continue to suggest a moderate pace of economic growth and more of the same for the first few months of 2007.”
Present-day conditions were seen somewhat less favorably than in September. Those saying conditions are “bad” rose to 17.1 percent of respondents, from 15.6 percent; those saying conditions are “good” edged up to 28.1 percent, from September’s 27.3 percent.
The labor market’s condition also was seen as less positive. Consumers saying jobs are “plentiful” dipped to 25.8 percent from 26.2 percent; those saying jobs are “hard to get” rose to 22.0 percent from September’s 20.9 percent.
The outlook for labor was mixed, with increases both in those expecting more jobs to be available in the months ahead (15.2 percent, up from September’s 14.7 percent) and those expecting fewer jobs (17.5 percent, up from 16.5 percent). And the proportion of consumers expecting their own incomes to increase edged down to 19.6 percent from 20.2 percent in September.
The short-term outlook for business conditions, however, was moderately more optimistic. Conditions were expected to improve in the next six months by 18.5 percent of October respondents, up from September’s 16.5 percent; conditions were expected to worsen by 9.9 percent, down from 10.3 percent.
The October 2006 CCI report is available at www.conferenc-board.org.
