U.S. Consumer Confidence Rebounds On Improved Assessment Of Current Conditions

(RTTNews) - After reporting an unexpected deterioration in U.S. consumer confidence in the previous month, the Conference Board released a report on Tuesday showing that its consumer confidence index rebounded in the month of December.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index climbed to 92.6 in December from an upwardly revised 91.0 in November.

Economists had expected the index to jump to a reading of 93.0 from the 88.7 originally reported for the previous month.

Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board, "Consumer confidence rebounded modestly in December, propelled by a considerably more favorable assessment of current economic and labor market conditions."

The report showed that the present situation index surged up to 98.6 in December from 93.7 in November, reaching its highest level since February of 2008.

The increase by the index came as the percentage of consumers saying business conditions are "good" was unchanged at 24.8 percent, while those saying conditions are "bad" fell to 19.6 percent from 21.8 percent.

Consumers were also more positive in their assessment of the job market, with those saying jobs are "plentiful" rising to 17.1 percent from 16.2 percent and those claiming jobs are "hard to get" decreasing to 27.7 percent from 28.7 percent.

"Consumers were moderately less optimistic about the short-term outlook in December, but even so, they are more confident at year-end than they were at the beginning of the year," Franco said.

The expectations index slipped to 88.5 in December from 89.3 in November, as consumers expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months edged down to 18.0 percent from 18.3 percent.

The Conference Board said consumers were also marginally less optimistic about the outlook for the labor market.

Consumers expecting more jobs in the months ahead decreased to 14.7 percent from 15.5 percent, while those anticipating fewer jobs rose to 16.9 percent from 16.1 percent.

The percentage of consumers expecting an increase in income also dipped to 16.4 percent from 16.9 percent. However, the proportion expecting a drop in income also fell to 10.0 percent from 11.0 percent.

Last Tuesday, Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan released a separate report showing that U.S. consumer sentiment improved by slightly less than previously estimated in December.

The report said the consumer sentiment index for December was downwardly revised to 93.6 from the mid-month reading of 93.8. Economists had expected the index to be downwardly revised to 93.0.

Despite the downward revision, the index was still above the final November reading of 88.8 and at its highest level since January of 2007.