{"id":448,"date":"2010-06-30T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T15:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=448"},"modified":"2018-08-18T17:43:52","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T21:43:52","slug":"not-suprisingly-june-consumer-confidence-declines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/06\/30\/not-suprisingly-june-consumer-confidence-declines\/","title":{"rendered":"Not surprisingly, June consumer confidence declines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello folks!<\/span><\/p>\n

Consumer confidence fell very sharply in the month of June according to the Conference Board, the compilers of the information.\u00a0 Specifically it fell to a 52.9 reading from May’s revised figure of 62.7.\u00a0 This result was almost ten points below economists expectations of 62.5.<\/span><\/p>\n

Analysis:<\/strong> I am surprised by the magnitude of the decline, but I am not surprised that consumer confidence fell in June.\u00a0 The reason, as I mentioned just yesterday prior to the consumer confidence release, is that most of us look at the performance of the stock market as a harbinger for future economic growth.\u00a0 And May saw a very terrible stock market performance.\u00a0 Not only that, but the media was full of reports of impending economic doom in Greece that might collapse Europe that might collapse the whole world.\u00a0 Consumers are lagging economic indicators as most of them assess\u00a0situations after the fact<\/span> and not before the fact<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the size of the decline does not auger well for the economy.\u00a0 When consumers are spooked, they don’t spend money.\u00a0 When they don’t spend money, the economy falls.\u00a0 When the economy falls they get more spooked.\u00a0 A bad vortex to be in.<\/span><\/p>\n

What could snap the U.S. consumer out of his or her phunk<\/span>?\u00a0 Lots and lots of good news.\u00a0 Slow and steady good news.\u00a0 A diminishment<\/span> of bad news.\u00a0 Signs of hiring by U.S. businesses.\u00a0 Getting the friggin’ Deep Horizon well plugged.\u00a0 Etc.\u00a0 Unfortunately, fear begets more fear.\u00a0 This situation is getting tricky and difficult to manage solely through political means.\u00a0 Most of us don’t want just another “Feel Good” piece of political policy – we want real and meaningful change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, the new financial industry overhaul bill will ultimately massively limit economic bad news from malfeasance.\u00a0 But because the details of the bill are so abstract, the results simply provide a framework for clean dealing.\u00a0 The bill itself is not the sort of good news that gets grandma out to Wal<\/span>-Mart to buy a new sun hat.\u00a0 So it looks like the economy is going to continue to skitter along for awhile longer.\u00a0 Let’s hope that those bloody Europeans can manage themselves while the U.S. consumer rediscovers his\/her mojo<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Importance grade:<\/strong> 10; the U.S. consumer drives the world economy.\u00a0 That he\/she is scared is not<\/strong> a good thing.\u00a0 However, the U.S. consumer is also not a leading indicator and is also very sensitive to sensationalism.\u00a0 If there is a wave of good news, then the U.S. consumer will rebound fairly quickly.\u00a0 Maybe the U.S. Congress can vote that every football team in the U.S. gets to win the Super Bowl at least once this year.\u00a0 Barring that, we are likely in for a bumpy ride.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello folks! Consumer confidence fell very sharply in the month of June according to the Conference Board, the compilers of the information.\u00a0 Specifically it fell to a 52.9 reading from May’s revised figure of 62.7.\u00a0 This result was almost ten points below economists expectations of 62.5. Analysis: I am surprised by the magnitude of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}