Despite Increasing Confidence In The Broader U.S. Economy, Overall Consumer Confidence Drops Slightly

Consumer confidence dipped slightly over the past two weeks, falling 0.5 points to 46.7, according to the HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (ESI). Despite confidence in the broader U.S. economy hitting another high for the year, declines in economic sentiment toward the labor market and personal finances helped push the overall index negative during the two-week reading. 

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Consumer confidence in the broader U.S. economy continued to climb during the two-week reading period, rising 0.7 points to another 12-month high of 43.7. Building on its previous increase, confidence in the broader U.S. economy has risen by 5.4 points over the last two readings. Confidence in making a major purchase also rose, reaching 47.9. Economic sentiment toward the labor market, housing market, and personal finances declined during the reading period. Sentiment toward personal finances dropped the most, falling 2.6 points, with confidence in the labor and housing markets declining by 0.7 points and 0.6 points, respectively.

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The three-day rolling average remained fairly stable during the two-week period. Despite reaching a mid-reading high of 48.3 points on Tuesday, October 11, the rolling average ended the period 0.5 points lower than where it began, falling from 46.6 on Wednesday, October 5 to 46.1 on Tuesday, October 18.

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The next release of the ESI will be November 1.

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.