Consumer Confidence At New 12-Month High For Second Consecutive Reading
Entering the first week of the new presidential administration, consumer confidence increased slightly, according to the HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (ESI), pushing confidence levels to a new 12-month high. While economic sentiment remained fairly stable during the two-week reading, the slight bump of 0.4 points brings the ESI to 52.8, its highest level since January 2015. The ESI’s five indicators remained steady, with only confidence in the labor market changing significantly with a gain of 2.6 points.
Consumer confidence in the labor market reached 46.4, a 12-month high for the indicator. Confidence in the housing market and broader U.S. economy increased slightly, rising 0.4 points to 50.9 and 0.1 points to 53.2, respectively. The slight increase in economic sentiment toward the broader U.S. economy helped keep the indicator’s level well-above its 2016 average of 41.2. Economic sentiment toward personal finances and making a major purchase both dropped slightly, falling 0.6 points to 64.7 and 0.2 points to 49.1, respectively.
The three-day rolling average ended the two-week reading period at 52.6, 0.4 points below its starting point of 53.0 on Wednesday, January 11. The average moved continuously throughout the reading period, changing its direction with each new day except for the final two days. The average fell to its lowest level, 51.5, on Monday, January 16, before reaching its peak of 54.6 points on Saturday, January 21.
The next release of the ESI will be February 7, 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.
For more information, visit Hamilton Place Strategies by clicking here and follow them on Twitter – @HPSInsight.
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.