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Economy

Conference Board: “The Worst Is Now Behind Us”

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index just saw a sharp increase in May, and the quote will say it all.  This follows a strong April as well.  The May data showed a reading of 54.9, up from 40.8 in April and way above the 43.0 reading expected from Bloomberg.  The present situations index came in at 28.9 from 25.5 in April, while the Expectations index came in at 72.3 from 51.0 in April.  This is actually the highest reading in 8 months.

This is some of the freshest data out there. The cut-off date was May 19, 2009 and the survey is based on data from 5,000 households.  This is not yet very positive on an extreme, and it points to the second quarter being less negative than the first quarter.

As the director noted in the release, “…While confidence is still weak by historical standards, as far as consumers are concerned, the worst is now behind us.”

The data is still mixed.  There was an increase in those claiming “good” and “bad” conditions, which is at least a sign that the undecideds are getting off the fence.  The “good” camp was only a gain to 8.7% from 7.9%, and the “bad” camp grew to 45.3% from 44.9%.  Those claiming that jobs are “hard to get” fell to 44.7% from 44.6%, and those claiming jobs are “plentiful” rose to 5.7% from 4.9%.

JON C. OGG
May 26, 2009

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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.

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