RSS feedus consumer confidence
’Black Friday to the rescue — but at what cost?
US equity markets are nearly as excited about Black Friday as these shoppers:
Retail surveys all point to above-expectations spending over the so-called “first weekend of the Holidays”, which begins with Black Friday,
US consumer “confidence” at recessionary levels
A list of antonyms for “confidence”: “uncertainty”, “disbelief”, “carefulness”, “caution”, “circumspection”, “prudence”, “unconfidence”.
[That last one... really? - Ed. Well, thesaurus.com says so.]
Anyways,
Goldman: debt ceiling debacle already hurting economy
We’ve all heard of the bad things that await should the debt ceiling not be raised or if the US’s sovereign rating is downgraded.
But any impact of the Washington quarrel on the US economy now is harder to spot.
Consumer surveys don’t predict inflation
Time to unburden ourselves of a long-withheld complaint ahead of this Thursday’s release of the January CPI numbers.
Here’s a chart comparing 12-month inflation expectations in the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence survey (updated last Friday) against actual 12-month changes in the CPI (both headline and core):
Analysts still confident even if US consumers aren’t
My, my — Tuesday’s US consumer confidence survey certainly took some analysts by surprise.
The Conference Board’s confidence index fell to 47.7 from a revised 53.4 in September, while analysts polled by Reuters had expected a rise to 57.0.