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The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence fell to 90.4 in November, posting a sharp decline against the forecast (100.0) and consensus (99.5) expectations for an improvement. The October reading for the headline index was revised up to 99.1 (initial: 97.6) in this morning's release. The present situation index fell to 108.1 (previous: 114.6) and expectations dropped to 78.6 (previous: 88.7). The pullback in confidence was driven by a broad-based deterioration in consumers' outlook for labor markets and business.
The labor market differential, which measures the share of consumers who thought jobs were plentiful less those who thought they were hard to get, fell to -6.3 from -1.9 last month. The November decline puts this metric of labor market confidence at the lowest level since July. This perception of softer labor markets led consumers to pare back their income expectations; net income expectations for the next six months fell to 5.4 from 7.6 in October. Questions related to business conditions also received less optimistic responses this month. The net share of respondents rating current business conditions as positive fell to 7.5 (previous: 8.5) and expectations dropped to 3.8 (previous: 7.7). Despite these negative developments, buying plans for autos (12.4, previous: 9.8) and major appliances (51.5, previous: 47.4) both improved.
"The drop in consumer confidence in November brings the Conference Board's index to the lowest level since September of last year. While weaker consumer expectations pose downside risks for consumption growth, confidence surveys can be noisy from month to month. Tomorrow's final November estimate of the University of Michigan survey report will provide further evidence as to whether sentiment has started to slump in recent weeks", notes Barclays.
