Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Is Market Mood Just Middle East Relief? | S3 E 142 | 04-28-26
Transcript
- 0:00Megan Horneman: Well, consumers are either getting used to this conflict in the Middle East or they are cheering the ceasefire that we've had.
- 0:06Megan Horneman: It is Tuesday, April the 28th, and this is Markets with Megan.
- 0:09Megan Horneman: If you like this podcast, you can subscribe, hit the alarm bell, share it with your friends, family, colleagues, anybody who wants to dig into the economic data that comes in the news headlines every day and how it impacts the markets.
- 0:22Megan Horneman: Well, this morning we received the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, and this is for the month of April.
- 0:29Megan Horneman: Last week we came to you with a near record low University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.
- 0:35Megan Horneman: But the Conference Board is telling a little bit of a different story.
- 0:39Megan Horneman: We actually saw consumer confidence and its components come in better than was expected.
- 0:45Megan Horneman: We saw them rise from the prior month, but the biggest increase was in the sentiment on the expectations for the economy, specifically the labor market.
- 0:54Megan Horneman: So let's dig into some of the details.
- 0:57Megan Horneman: We saw that those viewing jobs that are plentiful, and you subtract out those that think there's jobs hard to get, those thinking that there's more plentiful jobs rose the most that we've seen this year.
- 1:10Megan Horneman: So again, optimism there on the labor market.
- 1:12Megan Horneman: Could it be because we've seen a slowdown in some of the layoffs that Challenger has been reporting?
- 1:18Megan Horneman: Um we also saw that the expectation for business conditions in the next month, they were higher.
- 1:24Megan Horneman: They're the highest that we've seen since October of 2025.
- 1:28Megan Horneman: And we like to look at some of the indicators in this index as far as consumers thinking they're going to purchase big ticket items.
- 1:35Megan Horneman: You tend to see that you will consumers will be optimistic about buying those big ticket items if they're optimistic about their job prospects.
- 1:43Megan Horneman: So we did see the optimism around jobs filter into these indicators.
- 1:48Megan Horneman: When you look at those that are looking to buy an auto, um an automobile, a new automobile over the next six months, that jumped.
- 1:55Megan Horneman: Um you also saw those that are looking to buy a home rise to uh the highest level that we've seen this year.
- 2:02Megan Horneman: And then when you look at those expecting their income to increase versus those expecting their income to decrease over the next six months, that jumped pretty big as well to the highest we've seen since October of last year.
- 2:15Megan Horneman: So consumers are cheering the fact that does this coincide with the the Middle East having a semi-ceasefire right now?
- 2:23Megan Horneman: Um, maybe some cooling in the oil prices.
- 2:25Megan Horneman: It's a different story today, but when you go back and look at the rest of the month, we did, you know, peak in oil above$100 a barrel and settled in here just shy of$100 a barrel.
- 2:36Megan Horneman: We don't know if this will translate into further spending.
- 2:39Megan Horneman: Again, we got a mixed report last week from Consumer Confidence, but we will be looking to see if it does.
- 2:45Megan Horneman: This optimism spills into spending for the month of April.
- 2:48Megan Horneman: Remember, it's the first month we'll get of the second quarter date quarter data.
- 2:52Megan Horneman: That's all we have today.
- 2:53Megan Horneman: If you want a history of our podcast, you can go to marketswithmegan.fm.
- 2:56Megan Horneman: Thank you.