The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 99.8 in September from 105.6 in August, a month that also saw a significant decline. The September decline puts the index at its lowest level since November 2005 when it was at 98.3.
Conference Board Director Lynn Franco said in a release, “Weaker business conditions combined with a less favorable job market continue to cast a cloud over consumers and heighten their sense of uncertainty and concern.”
The report was not the only bad news to come out today as the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) report on existing homes sales showed a decline of 4.3% in August to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.5 million units, which is a 12.8% decline from August 2006.
Total housing inventories rose 0.4% representing a 10-month supply based on the current sales pace, according to the NAR, which attributed the sales drop to the recent disruption in the mortgage market.
Despite the news, U.S. equity markets only saw a marginal decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, which has rallied approximately 25% since November 2005, the last time the confidence number was this low, was actually in positive territory by mid-day. The index is only about 250 points off of its all time high despite the news. Equities surged after the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee cut rates last week and seem to react positively to any news that would push the Fed to lower interest rates despite what that news says about the underlying economy.
[...] we noted, the bill passed by the House on June 26 giving the CFTC authority to use its emergency powers to [...]
[...] press release got us thinking. We have chronicled in this space recently how the various methodologies to calculate economic reports by the Federal government have [...]
[...] couple of weeks ago following the passage of the Energy Markets Emergency Act we wrote a tongue in cheek blog regarding the legislation and commented that the fact that it was basically an empty gesture was its [...]
[...] recession though that seems to be a product of ongoing manipulation of the numbers. We also see housing values continuing to fall and housing inventory continuing to rise. And consumer confidence at multi-year [...]
[...] have commented here recently about the folly being perpetrated in some of the governmental reporting of statistics. The [...]