After declining in April, the Conference Board’s consumer sentiment index was expected to accelerate its drop (after peaking in Dec 2022 for this mini-cycle). The picture is murkey however as the headline print beat expectations (102.3 vs 99.0 exp) but that is down from April’s final print of 103.7 (revised up from 101.3). Under the hood, both current and future expectations indices declined (from revised higher prints)…
Source: Bloomberg
That is the lowest headline confidence print since Nov 2022 and lowest ‘current conditions’ print since Dec 2022.
Meanwhile, May’s results show consumer inflation expectations over the next 12 months decline modestly from 6.2% to 6.1% – although that level is down substantially from the peak of 7.9 percent reached last year, it is still elevated…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, the Conference Board’s measure of labor market tightness improved slightly (less jobs plentiful vs hard to get) in May…
Source: Bloomberg
This is not at all what Powell wants to see.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/30/2023 – 10:08
