Consumer confidence falls to low levels
NEW YORK (AP) - June 24, 2008 The report Tuesday also said the group's reading of consumers'
expectations hit an all-time low as home prices tumbled while
gasoline and food prices rose. A separate index of home prices saw
the largest drop since its inception in 2000. The news sent stocks
lower in morning trading.
The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell to 50.4
this month, the lowest since February 1992. The index dropped from
from 58.1 in May, a much steeper decline than economists expected.
The consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR was
56.5 for June.
Inflation, political flux and job insecurity have created an
"uncertainty more acute, perhaps, than any time since 9-11," said
William Hummer, chief economist at Wayne Hummer Investments.
"I don't think this can be purged immediately by an election or
anything else," he said. "I think it's endemic, deep-rooted and
likely to persist."
The reading, based on a survey of 5,000 representative U.S.
households, suggests "the economy remains stuck in low gear,"
said Lynn Franco, the Conference Board's director of consumer
research.
Separately, prices in all 20 cities tracked by the Standard &
Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index posted annual declines,
hitting levels not seen since August 2004. The narrower 10-city
index declined 16.3 percent in April, the largest decline in its
more than two-decade history.
Stocks fell in morning trading on the data, as well as a profit
warning from shipper UPS Inc., which said an "anemic" economy and
high fuel costs had led to a decline in package volume.
The Dow Jones industrial average was down 85.82, or 0.72
percent, at 11,756.54 in morning trading. The Standard & Poor's 500
was down 9.75, or 0.74 percent, at 1,308.25 and the Nasdaq
composite was down 30.25, or 1.27 percent, at 2,355.49.
