Consumer Confidence Disappoints In April After March’s ‘Hope’ Crash

After ‘hope’ crashed in March, analysts expected a modest further rebound in the headline Conference Board Consumer Confidence print in April – they were wrong. The headline confidence print dropped very modestly from a revised down 107.6 to 107.3 in April as Expectations limped higher (from 76.7 to 77.2) and Present Situation worsened slightly (from 153.8 to 152.6)…

Source: Bloomberg

Notably, the strongest gains in confidence were among the higher income households (over $100k rose from 121.3 to 132.2) while middle-aged folks (35-54) saw the biggest drop in confidence.

The labor market actually tightened very modestly in April (with Jobs easy-to-find falling relative to hard-to-get)…

Source: Bloomberg

We suspect this will get significantly worse as The Fed starts hiking rates.

On the bright side, inflation expectations fell in April…

Source: Bloomberg

Well done Jay!