Posted on 08/12/2003 7:45:27 AM PDT by Starwind
U.S. consumer confidence falls in August -report
Tuesday August 12, 9:57 am ET
NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Worries over the effectiveness of federal government policies weighed on U.S. consumer sentiment in August, a survey showed on Tuesday.Investor's Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said their monthly economic optimism index slipped to 54.8 in August from 56.2 the prior month, after holding steady for four months.
The federal policy component, which measures consumers' views on the effectiveness of government policies in general, suffered the biggest loss, falling to 49.1, the lowest since February 2001, from 52.7 in July. "The boost we got last month from a tax cut is wearing off," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP, the polling unit of TechnoMetrica.
The personal financial outlook, which gauges how respondents feel about their personal finances in the next six months, crept down to 60.1 from 61.0.
However, the economic outlook index, which measures how consumers feel about the economy's prospects six months from now, rose modestly to 55.3 from 54.7 in July, suggesting consumers have hopes for a recovery.
The economic optimism survey is based on over 900 interviews with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. The poll was conducted Aug. 4-9.
TechnoMetrica says the survey is the first reading of consumer confidence each month and that it predicts with 90 percent reliability monthly changes in the better known Conference Board and University of Michigan surveys.
The University of Michigan's preliminary August survey is due this Friday. Analysts are anticipating an improvement to 91.0 from 90.9 in July.
Sincerely, you're over-reacting to the headline. Study the report content (slim as it is) and think about what it tells you in conjuction with other consumer surveys and economic reports, their trends, etc.
The info is in the body, not the headline.
They do a survey each month, apparently in the first part of the month. It is not indicative of the entire month of August unless you assume that confidence remains the same all month and then mysteriously jumps up or down just before their next survey. LOL. Its reported as "August" consumer confidence because the survey is taken in August, not because its a total reflection of August (which no survey could be unless interviews were spread across the entire month). The University of Michigan numbers on consumer confidence are generally more accepted.
Richard W.
Well, if they are actually contacting people and surveying them, it stands to reason that those with high confidence (those with money) might be on vacation and unable to contribute to the figures.
The government survey data and methodology I have seen is useful in comparisons to itself only. For example, the "jobless" statistics are not necessarily accurate in their quantitative content, but you can still compare them against previous statistics gathered the same way.
So, taking into account the margin of error, this article should be headlined "Consumer Confidence Unchanged", or "We have no idea what's really going on".
Economies trend shifts are typically slower than watching grass grow. Perpetually trying to extrapolate such on a daily, weekly or even hourly posting basis is not only absurd, it's terribly naive bordering on insanely stupid. To actually make decisions on such is historically proven to be even more so.
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