Consumer Confidence Drops Slightly As President Trump Surpasses 100 Days In Office
Consumer confidence declined slightly over the past two weeks, dropping 0.3 points to 51.1, according to the HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (ESI). After reaching a 2017 high of 52.9 on Tuesday, March 21, consumer confidence has waned, shifting between 50.8 and 51.4 in the past month. Despite the decline during the most recent reading, consumer confidence remains well above its 2016 average of 47.5.
Fueling the ESI’s overall decline, consumer confidence in making a major purchase fell 1.4 points to 50.1. Despite this drop, consumers are still second most confident in making a major purchase when compared to the other four ESI indicators. Economic sentiment toward the housing and labor markets also declined, falling 0.8 points to 49.6 and 0.7 points to 43.4, respectively. Consumers continue to feel most confident in their personal finances, with economic sentiment increasing 0.6 points from 63.5 to 64.1 during the last reading. Lastly, after experiencing four weeks of decline, consumer confidence in the broader U.S. economy made a slight comeback, increasing 0.8 points from 47.3 to 48.1.
The ESI’s three-day moving average fell by 1.2 points during the past two weeks, dropping from 51.2 at the start of the reading to 50.0 by its conclusion. The moving average reached its peak of 52.4 on Wednesday, April 26. As President Trump approached and surpassed his 100th day in office on Saturday, April 29, the ESI’s moving average declined, falling from 52.2 on Friday, April 28 to its trough of 49.2 on Monday, May 1.
The next release of the ESI will be May 16, 2017.
About the Index
The HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (“ESI”) is a “living” index that measures U.S. adults’ expectations for the economy going forward, as well as their feelings about current conditions for major purchases. The primary goal of the Index is to accurately measure movements in overall national economic sentiment, and to provide a more sophisticated alternative to existing economic sentiment indices. Unlike other prominent indices that release consumer sentiment estimates infrequently, the HPS-CivicScience Index is updated in real time as responses are collected continuously every hour, every day. Large-scale cross-tabulation of survey responses and consumer attributes enable more granular analyses than are currently possible through prevailing measures.
For a more detailed overview of the Index and the underlying methodology, please request a white paper.
About Hamilton Place Strategies (HPS)
Hamilton Place Strategies is a policy, advocacy, and communications consulting firm with a focus and expertise at the intersection of government, business, and media.
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About CivicScience
CivicScience, Inc. provides the leading intelligent polling and real-time consumer insights platform, the InsightStore™. Its proprietary platform powers the world’s opinions and quickly gets that data to the decision makers who care. Every day, CivicScience polls ask millions of people questions related to thousands of topics, while its powerful data science and big data technology analyzes current consumer opinions, discovers trends as they start, and accurately predicts future behaviors and market outcomes. CivicScience polls run on hundreds of premier websites, in addition to its own public polling site at www.civicscience.com. CivicScience’s InsightStore™ is used by leading enterprises in marketing research, advertising, media, financial services, and political polling. For more information, visit CivicScience by clicking here and follow them on Twitter – @CivicScience.