On Apr 12, 2008, at 3:00 PM, Seth Ackerman wrote:
>
> Bloomberg yesterday:
>> U.S. Economy: Consumer Sentiment Drops to 26-Year Low
>>
>> By Courtney Schlisserman
>>
>> April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. consumers fell to a
>> 26-year low after employers fired workers and gasoline prices surged,
>> threatening the spending that accounts for more than two thirds of
>> the
>> economy.
>>
>> The Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer
>> sentiment decreased to 63.2 this month, the weakest level since 1982,
>> when the jobless rate approached 11 percent, the worst since the
>> Great
>> Depression.
It's a really ugly number. It's fallen more sharply than in the average recession, and from a higher level. It'll be interesting to see how the Conference Board number comes out - it has explicit job market questions in the survey, whereas the Michigan survey doesn't.
Doug