t***h
发帖数: 5601 | 1 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/u-s-consumer-sentiment
By Jillian Berman - Fri Aug 12, 2011
Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest level since
May 1980, adding to concern that weak employment gains and volatility in the
stock market will prompt households to retrench.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer
sentiment slumped to 54.9 from 63.7 the prior month. The gauge was projected
to decline to 62, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News
survey.
The biggest one-week slump in stocks since 2008 and the threat of default on
the nation's debt may have exacerbated consumers' concerns as unemployment
hovers above 9 percent and companies are hesitant to hire. Rising pessimism
poses a risk household spending will cool further, hindering a recovery that
Federal Reserve policy makers said this week was already advancing "
considerably slower" than projected.
"The mood is very depressed," said Chris Christopher, an economist at IHS
Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. "Consumers are very
fatigued and very uncertain. In the short term, people are going to pull
back on spending."
Estimates of 69 economists for the confidence measure ranged from 59 to 66.5
, according to the Bloomberg survey. The index averaged 89 in the five years
leading up to the recession that began in December 2007. |
|
