I believe it's just consumers being wary of which direction the economy will go. With all the bad financial news lately and not knowing how the upcoming presidential race will turn out, it's hard for the average person to be optimistic, IMO.
I have to admit that I’m not very optimistic about things. Of course, I’m so cheap that pessimism can’t change my spending habits that much. I’m looking at a few big ticket purchases, but I’m trying to limit trips made on $3.49 gas or purchases of stupid things that I’m just going to dump later.