Consumer confidence rebounds
Janice Chamberlain -- Furniture Today, January 2, 2005
New York — After four months of declines, The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index rebounded in December, gaining 9.7 points to end the year at 102.3 — only the third time in the past 18 months the Index has broken the 100-point mark.
The Expectations Index rose to 99.9 from 90.2, and the Present Situation Index grew to 105.9 from 96.3. Plans to buy a home in the next six months shot up to 3.4% from 2.6% in November.
Lynn Franco, director of the board's Consumer Research Center, said, "The continuing economic expansion, combined with job growth, has consumers ending the year on a high note. The most significant contributor to the rebound in confidence has been the overall improvement in current conditions over the past 12 months. And consumers' outlook suggests that the economy will continue to expand in the first half of the year."
Appraising the current situation, 82.2% of survey participants said business conditions were good or normal in December, compared with 79.8% in November. More than 19% said jobs were plentiful in December, while 17.1% thought they were in November.
Looking ahead six months, 92.3% of consumers said business conditions would be better or the same, compared with 88.6% in November. Six-month expectations for employment opportunities also revived, with 84.5% of survey participants saying there would be more or the same number of jobs, compared with 80.7% in November.
Plans to buy big-ticket items in the next six months increased for autos, from 4.6% in November to 6.4% in December, and for major appliances, to 29.3% from 25.3%.
All but two of The Conference Board's nine regions showed improvement in December compared with November. Leading the way was the Mountain region, skyrocketing 24.7 points to 119.8 from 95.1 in November.
Not far behind was the Middle Atlantic Region, which improved 17.6 points to finish the year at 85.5 points.
The Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The cutoff date for December's preliminary results was Dec. 20.
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