Consumer Confidence Plunges Below Any Economist’s Estimate; Consumers Shock Economists

Consumer confidence is the third miss by economists in a single day. Please consider the Bloomberg Consensus Estimate for Consumer Confidence.

 Consumer confidence has fallen back noticeably this month, down more than 6 points to a much lower-than-expected 95.2. This compares very poorly with the Econoday consensus for 103.0 and is even far below the Econoday low estimate of 100.5. The weakness, ominously, is the result of falling assessments of the jobs market, both the current jobs market and expectations for the future jobs market. The second quarter, which is expected to be much stronger than the weather-depressed first quarter, isn’t likely to get off to a fast start, at least as far as this report goes.

The most striking weakness in April is the assessment of future conditions with the expectations component down 8.5 points to 87.5 for the weakest reading going all the way back to September. And the most striking weakness among the sub-components is employment, where fewer see more jobs opening up 6 months from now and more see fewer jobs available. This spills over into income where fewer see an increase ahead and more see a decrease.

But also weak is the present situation component which is down more than 2-1/2 points to 106.8 for its weakest reading since December. Here the most closely watched sub-component is the jobs-hard-to-get reading which is up nearly 1 full percentage point to 26.4 percent. This reading will hold back expectations at least to some degree for a big bounce back in the April employment report from a very weak March.

Inflation expectations are down sharply this month, 4 tenths lower to 4.8 percent which is one of the lowest readings of the recovery. Gas prices have been edging higher but are still low, the latter no doubt a major factor behind the latest reading.

Buying plans are mixed with automobile and vacation plans down but not home plans which are up. But home buying won’t be a featured activity for consumers if their expectations for employment are weak. Today’s report, showing weakness in the jobs assessment and in inflation expectations, won’t be pulling forward expectations for the Federal Reserve’s first rate hike.