Consumer Sentiment in U.S. Fell in February to a Four-Month Low
Source: Bloomberg
Consumer sentiment declined in February to a four-month low as declining stock prices and weaker global conditions weighed on Americans’ views of the economy.
The University of Michigan’s preliminary index decreased to 90.7 from 92 in January, a report showed Friday. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey called for 92.3. While sentiment cooled for a second month, so did households’ long-term inflation expectations, which declined to the lowest in records to 1979.
A weakening of sentiment reflected the impact of the recent turmoil in equity markets, fueled by everything from declining oil prices to a dimmer global outlook. At the same time, households were more upbeat about their financial prospects because they expect inflation to remain low.
“Consumers tend to feel much better about not only their ability to consume in the near-term when they have a little bit more cash in their pocket,” Thomas Simons, a money-market economist at Jefferies LLC in New York, said before the report. “But they also feel better about their longer-term inflation prospects too, being somewhat lower.”
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-12/consumer-sentiment-in-u-s-fell-in-february-to-a-four-month-low
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