NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The University of Michigan's reading of consumer confidence in the United States fell in March, a published report said Friday, missing Wall Street estimates for a slight gain.
The university said its preliminary consumer sentiment index for March fell to 94.1 from 94.4 in February, according to a Reuters report. Economists, on average, expected a reading of 95, according to Briefing.com.
The university's current conditions index, which measures the way consumers feel about the present state of the economy, rose to 105.7 from 103.6 in February.
The expectations index, measuring consumer's hopes for the near future, fell to 86.6 from 88.5 in February.
"There have been a number of strong offsetting influences on consumer moods so far this month. Obviously, the two biggest negatives are the shaky jobs situation and rising gasoline and energy prices," said Steve Stanley, economist at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets.
"At the same time, notwithstanding the lack of job creation, the economy is generally strong."
The report was probably a bit stronger than some of the "whisper numbers" traders on Wall Street had expected and helped lift stock prices in early trading. Treasury bond prices fell.
The numbers will be revised later in the month with new survey data.
Wall Street pays close attention to consumers, whose spending makes up more than two-thirds of the total economy.
Other recent measures of consumer confidence, including those from the Conference Board, ABC/Money magazine and Investor's Business Daily, have also fallen recently, as consumers have grown increasingly worried about an anemic job market.
Payrolls grew by just 21,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said last week, far short of estimates and of what's needed to keep up with growth in the labor force.
Payrolls are still more than 2.3 million jobs lower than when the 2001 recession began in March of that year, making this the worst labor-market recovery since the Labor Department started keeping track in 1939.
Still, fueled by tax rebate checks and cash from a wave of mortgage refinancing, consumers hit the malls with gusto in the third quarter of 2003, pushing economic growth to the fastest annual pace in nearly 20 years.
Those stimulative effects faded in the fourth quarter, and the pace of consumer spending growth slowed. But many economists believe income-tax refunds and a new wave of refinancing will keep spending healthy in the first half of the year.
In any event, consumers don't always spend the way they feel. Confidence plunged after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, for example, but consumers still managed to make their way to auto dealers to buy cars with zero-percent financing.
|
