Consumer Confidence Falls Sharply
Over the last two weeks, consumer confidence dropped 1.2 points from 50 to 48.8, according to the HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index. This reading is the index’s lowest level in 2015, and reverses the sharp rise the index saw during the 2014 holiday season. This drop ties the second largest two-week drop this year, and comes on the heels of a modest 0.4 point gain in the previous two-week period. The drop coincides with a weak showing in jobs numbers last Friday, with first readings suggesting only 126,000 jobs were added in March.
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Confidence fell in all but one of the five measured areas. Confidence in major purchases fell 2.2 points to 49.0 and confidence in the U.S. economy fell 1.9 points from 43.8 to 41.9. In fact, confidence in the U.S. economy has not been this low since late October 2014. Confidence in finding a new job saw the only gain, a modest 0.2 points up from 39.5 to 39.7.
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The three-day moving average remained below its starting point of 50.1 for the entire two-week period. The overall drop in the index is due to the final few days of the two-week period when the three-day rolling average fell 2.3 points.
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The next release of the ESI will be April 21.
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.