March Consumer Confidence Index Hits 16-Year High

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 1:32PM EST · Published Mar 28, 10:50AM EDT

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March Consumer Confidence Index Hits 16-Year High — © Thinkstock

[cnxvideo id=”510061″ placement=”ros”]The Conference Board has released its latest monthly consumer confidence numbers. March’s Consumer Confidence Index reached 125.6 in March, up from 116.1 in February. The index is based on a figure of 100 established in 1985.

The Conference Board’s two other primary monthly indexes also rose. The Present Situation Index rose from 134.4 in February to 143.1, and the Expectations Index increased from 103.9 last month to 113.8. The present situation is defined as “current conditions,” while the expectations index covers a “short-term” outlook.

Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at the Conference Board, said:

Consumer confidence increased sharply in March to its highest level since December 2000 (Index, 128.6). Consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions improved considerably. Consumers also expressed much greater optimism regarding the short-term outlook for business, jobs and personal income prospects. Thus, consumers feel current economic conditions have improved over the recent period, and their renewed optimism suggests the possibility of some upside to the prospects for economic growth in the coming months.

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Several other factors of consumer confidence rose as well. The percentage of respondents who said business conditions are “good” rose from 28.3% to 32.2%, the Conference Board numbers showed. The research also indicated that the percentage of consumers stating jobs are “plentiful” rose from 26.9% to 31.7%.

In terms of forward-looking data, consumers expect business conditions will improve over the next six months, with that percentage rising from 23.9 in February to 27.1.

Consumers were also more optimistic about the jobs market. Those who expected “more jobs in the months ahead” rose from 20.9% last month to 24.8% for March.

The Conference Board, a division of Nielsen, issues numbers once a month. For March, the cutoff date was the 16th.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.