The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which has been declining since August, fell further in October. The Index now stands at 95.6 (1985=100), down from 99.5 in September.
The Present Situation Index decreased to 118.8 from 121.2 in September. The Expectations Index declined to 80.1 from 85.0.
The Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households. The monthly survey is conducted for The Conference Board by TNS. TNS is the world's largest custom research company.
The cutoff date for October's preliminary results was October 23rd Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center: “Consumer Confidence posted its third monthly decline and continues to hover at two-year lows (Oct. 2005, 85.2).
Further weakening in business conditions has, yet again, tempered consumers' assessment of current-day conditions and may very well be a prelude to lackluster job growth in the months ahead.
In addition, consumers are growing more pessimistic about the short-term future and their rather bleak outlook suggests a less than stellar ending to this year.”
Consumers' assessment of present conditions weakened further in October. Those claiming conditions are “good” decreased to 23.4 percent from 25.7 percent.
However, those saying conditions are “bad” decreased to 16.3 percent from 17.8 percent. Overall, consumers were less upbeat in their appraisal of the job market.
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