Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Economic Update: Consumer Confidence Decline in February | Episode 105 | 02-27-2024

Transcript

Economic Update: Consumer Confidence Decline in February | Episode 105 | 02-27-2024 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:01
  Speaker 0: Hello, this is Megan Horniman, the Chief Investment Officer for Verdence Capital Advisors.
• 0:05
  Speaker 0: We're coming to you today it's Tuesday, February 27th with our regular segment of Markets with Megan to discuss some of the economic data that we received today.
• 0:14
  Speaker 0: So it wasn't a great morning for economic data, whether you look at some of the regional manufacturing surveys or a pretty disappointing durable goods orders report as well.
• 0:23
  Speaker 0: But what we're going to focus on is the consumer confidence report that came out and unfortunately, consumer confidence is declining.
• 0:31
  Speaker 0: It fell much more than expected for the month of February and it was the first time we've actually seen a decline in consumer confidence in four months.
• 0:41
  Speaker 0: There's a couple of components within this report that are also released.
• 0:44
  Speaker 0: When you look at the consumer confidence on the present situation or future expectations, both of those also declined.
• 0:53
  Speaker 0: Let's just dig a little bit deeper into some of the things within the report.
• 0:56
  Speaker 0: The decline was led by really a deteriorating view on job prospects those viewing that there were more jobs jobs plentiful than there were hard to get.
• 1:06
  Speaker 0: That's actually sliding, so this is showing us some further cracks in the labor market.
• 1:11
  Speaker 0: There is when you look at expectations from consumers over the next six months, they're expecting a weaker outlook for business conditions as well as their individual incomes.
• 1:22
  Speaker 0: The last thing that we take a close look at also is the inflation expectations from consumers, because inflation expectations can be a vicious circle If you think prices are going to be higher, then you spend more now and then you just create more inflation.
• 1:36
  Speaker 0: Well, we did see a little bit of easing, in that the median view for inflation over the next 12 months fell by 0.1 percent, but it still is at 4.2 percent.
• 1:47
  Speaker 0: So consumers are still very concerned about their finances, their income and inflation over the next year.
• 1:56
  Speaker 0: We'll continue to watch this.
• 1:57
  Speaker 0: We'll get some more information on the consumer later this week.
• 2:01
  Speaker 0: This is a pretty big week from an economic data standpoint.
• 2:04
  Speaker 0: We'll get the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey the final reading on that that comes out on Friday.
• 2:11
  Speaker 0: But the big one's going to be on Thursday when we're looking at personal income and spending and then the Fed's preferred inflation measure, which is PCE.
• 2:20
  Speaker 0: So we'll be back with some more this week.
• 2:22
  Speaker 0: If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to podcast at Verdence dot com.
• 2:26
  Speaker 0: Thank you.