The new Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence poll taken during the first two weeks of the month shows that the US had its first positive numbers since 2007.
Reuters was given an early release of the report which says that the U.S. reading in the survey was 84, up 4 points from a similar survey in July. That is slightly below the global average rating of 86.
The report shows confidence highest in India and Indonesia and lowest in Japan and parts of Europe. The survey polled more than 30,500 consumers.
These polls are notoriously fickle and it is not worth reading too much into them. A sample of more tham 30,000 may seem large, but it really is not when spread across all the major countries in the world.
Consumer confidence polls in the US which come from a number of sources such as The University of Michigan and The Wall Street Journal show large fluctuations from month to month. It is unlikely that the figures will mean much until there is a string of several uninterrupted months of improvement.
One of the problems that investors, economists, and the Fed face now is that consumers are trying to balance rising unemployment with a perception that the worst of the recession is over. Unemployment levels near 10% and rising tend to keep many people in the pessimistic category. That is not likely to change until well into next year.
The media is fond of highlighting every single major report on economic trends or sentiment. The fact of the matter is that, in an economy where there is still no center of gravity, polls are, at best, a basis for guessing.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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