Economy

Mixed Bag in Consumer Sentiment Revision

Jon C. Ogg

Published: May 27, 2016 11:05 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 7:28 am

The University of Michigan released its monthly revision for consumer sentiment in May. Its preliminary report two weeks ago had a reading of 95.8, a gain of seven points and the highest reading of the year. That revision now puts the index down at 94.7, still a robust gain from the prior month, but far less than originally forecast.

Bloomberg had its consensus estimate at 95.5, and Dow Jones was calling for 95.0 in May. Just to show that not all consensus estimates are equal: Reuters was calling for this revision to be 95.4 in May.

Current conditions were 109.9, up from 106.7 in April and from 100.8 a year earlier.

The Index of Consumer Expectations, what is considered a view of the coming months, was a more tame 84.9. That is up from 77.6 in April, and only a tad higher than the 84.2 reading a year ago.

As this is a revision report, it generally takes a much wider move than this to influence the broader markets. The University of Michigan’s statement on consumer sentiment for the May revision said:

Consumers were a bit less optimistic in late May than earlier in the month, but sentiment was still substantially higher than last month. Indeed, there have only been four prior months since the January 2007 peak in which the Sentiment Index was higher than in May 2016, all recorded at the start of 2015. Despite the meager GDP growth as well as a higher inflation rate, consumers became more optimistic about their financial prospects and anticipated a somewhat lower inflation rate in the years ahead. Positive views toward vehicle and home sales also posted gains in May largely due to low interest rates. The biggest uncertainty consumers see on the horizon is not whether the Fed will hike interest rates in the next few months, but the outlook for future government economic policies under a new president. This has increased their emphasis on maintaining precautionary savings, although the savings rate is not expected to increase much beyond its current level. Although small stock gains are anticipated, household wealth is more likely to benefit from rising home prices, with gains now more frequent than in a decade. Overall, the data indicate that inflation-adjusted consumer expenditures can be expected to rise by 2.5% in 2016 and 2.7% in 2017.