Holding Steady: Consumer Confidence Remains Above 46 For Fourth Straight Month
Rising 0.1 points to 46.5, the HPS-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (ESI) remains largely unchanged for the second report in a row. The ESI is nearly 1.0 point above the 2014 average, and 2.5 points above the trailing-twelve-month average. Consumer confidence has remained above 46 since mid-March and is higher than where it was this time last year, when it began a steep decline that lasted through the fall.
According to the three-day rolling average, consumer confidence jumped from 44.1 on July 2 to 48.6 on July 8. This was followed by a steady decline to 46.8 on July 15, leaving consumer confidence 2.7 points higher than it was at the beginning of the two-week period.
Four out of five index components increased over the two-week period, while a drop of 4.0 in confidence in personal finances held down the overall ESI. Consumer confidence in jobs, the U.S. economy, and making a major purchase pulled the ESI upward with gains of 1.0, 2.3, and 0.6, respectively. Confidence in jobs, making a major purchase, and purchasing a new home are all at or above 2014 averages. Confidence in the national economy rebounded after a decline at the beginning of the summer, but has yet to fully recover.
The next release of the ESI will be Tuesday, July 29th.
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.