Confidence is at a level that tends to signal recessions says the Conference Board.
US Consumer Confidence Tumbled Again
The Consumer Conference Board reports US Consumer Confidence Tumbled Again in March
Synopsis
- The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index® fell by 7.2 points in March to 92.9 (1985=100).
- The Present Situation Index—based on consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions—decreased 3.6 points to 134.5.
- The Expectations Index—based on consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions—dropped 9.6 points to 65.2, the lowest level in 12 years and well below the threshold of 80 that usually signals a recession ahead.
Consumer Confidence and Expectations
Present Situation
- 17.7% of consumers said business conditions were “good,” down from 19.1% in February.
- 16.6% said business conditions were “bad,” up from 14.8%.
Expectations Six Months Hence
- 17.1% of consumers expected business conditions to improve, down from 20.8% in February.
- 27.3% expected business conditions to worsen, up from 25.5%.
- 16.7% of consumers expected more jobs to be available, down from 18.8% in February.
- 28.5% anticipated fewer jobs, up from 26.6% in February
- 16.3% of consumers expected their incomes to increase, down from 18.8% in February.
- 15.5% expected their income to decrease, up from 12.8%.
US Consumer Confidence Lowest Since Early 2021
Bloomberg reports US Consumer Confidence Tumbles Again to Lowest Since Early 2021
The Conference Board’s gauge of confidence decreased 7.2 points to 92.9, data released Tuesday showed. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a reading of 94.
A measure of expectations for the next six months dropped nearly 10 points to 65.2, the lowest in 12 years, while a gauge of present conditions declined more modestly.
Consumer sentiment surveys from The Conference Board and University of Michigan have been dismal of late as households fear a resurgence in inflation from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Companies have warned of higher prices and less demand, coinciding with economists’ forecasts that suggest a risk of stagflation and rising odds of recession.
Inflation expectations over the coming year increased to the highest level in two years. A similar metric from the Michigan survey climbed in early March to the highest since 2022.
Spin the Tariff Wheel
The best way to restore confidence would be to stop tariff nonsense.
Instead, Trump heightens tariff uncertainty with on-again, off-again threats, with bigger threats on Canada and Mexico than China.
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Trump spun the tariff wheel of fortune for the second time today. This time, it landed on “soon”.
Regardless of what side anyone is on, the Tariffs have thrown business leaders into a period of great uncertainty. This uncertainty affects consumers negatively.
Buffett has it right, “Tariffs are an act of war”.
old dumpy don, is a sadistic sick dude, who literally gets off on jerking the world around. same with elmo and the rest of them. this has happened in world history, where the cruelty is just the added benefit. if you expect the donald to change his ways now, i got a bridge down flatbush avenue here, to sell ya.
The inflationary depression rages on in the real economy. It will take a long while to improve even if there is some deflation. This dearth of earnings is bound to affect a lot of equity values as things evolve.
It looks like the tradable sectors are already in recession caused by Trump’s tariff charade, while the non-tradable sectors are still holding up, especially because the federal government keeps spending like a drunken sailor (see February 2025 deficit over February 2024 deficit). The key from now on is whether the consumer scales back, and whether Trump starts large-scale deportations (which would be the secand large stagflationary shock after tariffs).
“The best way to restore confidence would be to stop tariff nonsense.”
Amen. It won’t happen though, trump loves the attention and power trips. It’ll be endless chaos until change is forced.
Normally it’s the Fed that takes away the punchbowl by raising rates. This time it’s the President who takes it away by deep cutting of expenses by the Federal government in order to get the deficit under control with an astonishing rapidity. Personally I find this much better than the Fed’s way since it will lead to a much healthier economy down the road instead of just another interest-rate-hike recession which doesn’t solve the underlying problems.
If the debt is under control, why did repubs raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion? Stop deluding yourself, the man is already a failure.
Lagging indicator. Going forward the deficit picture looks much better than under Biden. Do you disagree?
Yes, I guarantee by the time Trump leaves office, the debt will be at least $5 trillion more than where he started. Might easily be $10 trillion. Book mark this and get back to me in 2029.
The debt is not under control, nor on a trajectory to be under control, unless you’re completely unfamiliar with simple math.
You can fire every federal employee and not come even close to getting the deficit down to a sustainable level.
If Trump/the GOP start talking about cutting SS/Medicaid/Defense, then we can talk. Right now we’re just cutting the stuff that can most harm the economy long term and has the least fiscal benefit, because it’s easy and exciting.
Lots of waste has bee cut already and more will come. Firing Federal employees is only a small part. The meat of the cuts are coming from the elimination of useless programs and the buckets of money sent to dubious organizations on an annual basis. A few billion here and a few billion there eventually adds up to something significant as long as you can keep up the momentum. Additionally cleaning up and consolidating data bases and streamlining the the IT systems will create more efficiency and as long as you can keep down the payroll they savings will pour in. Apparently you are one of those who think Trump and Musk are not doing the right thing. I ask you what would you do to lower the deficit? Raise taxes and increase regulation maybe? What choice is there?
We may be decelerating, but not at a recessionary level yet. Fedwire transactions show a typical seasonal drop.
Fedwire Funds Service – Monthly Statistics
B.R.O.K.E
Suffocating Debt
Hard to imagine consumer confidence numbers ever being good again.
Recency bias. “It will always be like this.” Until it isn’t.
I suspect AI will arrive like a huge cosmic bowling ball from left field and send disruptive waves through all this we can’t imagine. But here are so many variables afloat, I don’t think anyone has a credible model.
When the people began to be mostly referred to as “consumers” rather than “citizens” is when it went off the rails.
I see a huge disparity in this. I buy/sell on local/national auctions and see people bidding huge prices for jewelry, guns, trinkets, etc.
A self-selective sample.
Yeah, all the left-wing hardliners responded that we’re going into a horrible depression. Everybody else thinks things are just about OK.
The US (and world) are at the end of a great 1982 13/32-33 year asset-debt credit cycle with a falling US equity composite index since SPX peak valuation on 19 February 2025. Tariffs, decreased deficit spending, mass firing of federal employees, alienating former allies and their investment money in US debt, equities, property, tourist travel, Disney land visits, et. al., will nightmarishly enhance the inevitable US recession.
Foreign investment into the US is actually surging and Florida’s tourist industry at the beginning of this year is seeing the highest influx it has ever seen and no European or foreign country has actually cancelled any orders for defense equipment since Trump came into office even though they bitch about the US in general and Trump/Musk in particular. The market is down though so you are right on that.
From Morningstar 24 Mar… European investors are already showing signs of souring on US stocks against the backdrop of Trump’s trade wars and concerns about the strength of the US economy. This shift comes amid a reversal of fortune in 2025, with US stocks slumping and European shares rallying.
This potential change of direction is already evident in weekly ETF flows, which if sustained would represent a dramatic change from 2024, when European investors chased high-performing US stocks. From Feb. 14 until the week ending March 14, European investors withdrew EUR 2.852 billion ($3.079 billion) from US equity ETFs while shifting EUR 14.614 billion ($15.779 billion) to European equity ETFs.
Trump has a huge (YUGE) Voting Percentage of adults who are over 60. Increase PHARMA costs will cost him dearly…though the TRUMP LOVERS are as adamant/extreme belief types as the TDS types.
Check your stats maybe. Young people were the reason Trump won the election. People just make shit up here now
Let’s see young people’s attention spans and patience tested, then. My anecdote is, seafood of various kinds at my market just went up 10-20% today.
The more likely thing to happen is social security and medicare stops sending checks out. You’ll be able to hear those howls all the way to the moons of Jupiter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/25/social-security-phones-doge-cuts/
You reap what you sow. Bwahahahahaahahahaa!
Fu*k sentiment.
Well well well Mish
India is open to cutting tariffs on more than half of U.S. imports worth $23 billion in the first phase of a trade deal the two nations are negotiating, two government sources said, the biggest cut in years, aimed at fending off reciprocal tariffs.
The South Asian nation wants to mitigate the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal worldwide tariffs set to take effect from April 2, a threat that has disrupted markets and sent policymakers scrambling, even among Western allies.
In an internal analysis, New Delhi estimated such reciprocal tariffs would hit 87% of its total exports to the United States worth $66 billion, two government sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
the only problem with this idea is that Leading Indicators signaled recession for two years and we have yet to get there. I might contend that the nature of the economy has changed beyond what older indicators measure so their meanings are not quite as strong as when they were first developed
I agree. It’s changed to the tune of $2T annually. That’s a lot of juice. The question is will Congress / Trump / DOGE cut enough waste to start a recession? If I answered for each group separately it would be:
HELL NO, MAYBE, HELL YES
They don’t say Haines unless I say they say Haines.
Same with Recessions and then they are always POST RECESSION calls.
The bullshit runs deeply.
I have been saying this on this blog for years. People still using 1960’s economic playbooks to do forecasting, it doesn’t work that way any more with remote work, global outsourcing, supply chains all over the world, etc.
Furthermore, the U.S. is in a demographic death spiral so I expect jobs to stay robust with periodic waves of “reconfiguration” as AI and other tech makes some jobs disappear and new ones pop up.
Long term though, the U.S. will have 80m socialists on social programs depleting all the healthcare and productivity. It won’t be pretty.
AI can’t do healthcare and productivity?
correct. the old gauges are almost useless. GDP is a joke. unless you think handing billions of weapons to a kleptocracy like ukraine productive.
Logical.
Trump and his programs are off to a good start and totally consistent with today’s results.