Consumer Confidence Report Shows Strength Throughout

The October consumer confidence report is strong throughout, led by a 5.3 point jump in the headline index to 125.9 which is a 17-year high. Jobs and income are the keys to October's report. The assessment of October's jobs market is unusually favorable with only 17.5 percent of the sample saying jobs are hard to get, which is very low and down 1/2 percentage point from September. This reading will firm expectations for strength in Friday's employment report. Another positive is confidence in the outlook for the jobs market where pessimists are making up an increasingly smaller share, at only 11.8 percent.

The strong jobs market is translating into expectations for rising income. Here too pessimists are making up a smaller share, at only 7.4 percent. And jobs are not the only positive for income as the sample is increasingly bullish on the stock market, at a very wide 42.1 percent bulls vs 23.2 percent bears.

Another strength is a jump in plans to buy autos, up 1 percentage point to 13.1 percent and perhaps suggesting that hurricane-replacement demand is still at play in what may be a positive for tomorrow's unit auto sales. A major weakness in the report is inflation expectations which are down 2 tenths to 4.7 percent which is very low for this reading.

Consumer spending has never lived up to the enormous strength in consumer confidence but the shopping year is still far from over and today's results should give retailers a lift going into the holidays.

Recent History Of This Indicator:
Consumer confidence in September was pulled down only slightly by weakness in hurricane states, otherwise readings remained unusually strong especially labor market assessments. The Econoday consensus is calling for a gain in October, to 121.0 vs September's 119.8.