Consumer Confidence improved slightly in October but remained at its second lowest level since February. The index rose to a reading of 50.2 from September's 48.6 mark. Consumer's buying plans remain weak, and only 9.1% of consumers expect their incomes to rise in the next six months.
Concerns about lack of job growth, slipping home values, and still tight credit conditions at the consumer level are the most obvious drivers of weak consumer confidence.
Until/unless those three primary elements collectively show sustained improvement over a multi-month period the prospects for accelerating economic growth remain small - a condition supportive of the prospects for steady to perhaps fractionally lower mortgage interest rates.
Uncle Sam will be conducting an auction of $35 billion worth of 2-year notes this afternoon. The broad consensus among analysts is that this offering will be very well bid -- since both by rhetoric and by action the Fed is telegraphing their intention to maintain their benchmark interest rates at exceptionally low levels for an extended period of time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment