Economy
August 30, 2016
Consumer Confidence in August 2016
Written by Peter Wright
The source of this data is the Conference Board with analysis by Steel Market Update. Please see the end of this piece for an explanation of the indicator.
Consumer Confidence jumped from 92.4 in May, its lowest value since July last year to 101.1 in August, its highest value since September last year. Included below is the official news release from the Conference Board. The three month moving average (3MMA) rose every month from 94.4 in May to 98.4 in August. We prefer to smooth the data in this way because of monthly volatility which in the case of Consumer Confidence has been quite extreme since the beginning of last year. The composite index is made up of two sub-indexes. These are the consumer’s view of the present situation and his/her expectations for the future. The 3MMA of the both the present situation and that of expectations have moved back towards their six year trend (Figure 1).
