{"id":46602,"date":"2025-07-30T03:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46602\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:40:16","slug":"consumer-confidence-rises-in-july-but-recession-signals-still-flashing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46602\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Confidence Rises in July, but Recession Signals Still Flashing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conference Board \u00ae improved by 2.0 points in July to 97.2 (1985=100), from 95.2 in June (revised up by 2.2 points). The Present Situation Index\u2014based on consumers\u2019 assessment of current business and labor market conditions\u2014fell 1.5 points to 131.5. The Expectations Index\u2014based on consumers\u2019 short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions\u2014rose 4.5 points to 74.4. But expectations remained below the threshold of 80 that typically signals a recession ahead for the sixth consecutive month. The cutoff date for preliminary results was July 20, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumer confidence has stabilized since May, rebounding from April\u2019s plunge, but remains below last year\u2019s heady levels,\u201d<\/p>\n

Figure 1 shows the Conference Board\u2019s measure vs. the MIchigan measure, and a text based news sentiment index.<\/p>\n

\"Consumer<\/p>\n

Figure 1: (blue), Conference Board Consumer Confidence (tan), and Shapiro, Sudhof and Wilson (2020) SF Daily News Sentiment Index (light green) , all demeaned and normalized by standard deviation (for the 2021-2025M02 sample period); and Shapiro, Sudhof and Wilson (2020) SF Daily News Sentiment Index (black, right scale). The News Index observation for July is through 7\/27\/2025. Orange shading denotes Trump 2.0 administration. Orange dashed line at \u201cLiberation Day\u201d in 2025M04. Source: U.Mich via FRED, Conference Board via Investing.com, SF Fed, and author\u2019s calculations.<\/p>\n

The Conference Board measure is TWO standard deviations lower than November 2024, and ONE standard deviation below January 2025.<\/p>\n

Note the distinction between current conditions vs. expected.<\/p>\n

\"Present<\/p>\n

Source: Conference Board, accessed 7\/29\/2025.<\/p>\n

As CB observes, the expectations measure remains below the recession threshold.<\/p>\n

Finally, as for individual households\u2019 views regarding their own expected situation in the future, this figure is relevant.<\/p>\n

\"Family\u2019s<\/p>\n

Source: Conference Board, accessed 7\/29\/2025.<\/p>\n

While the \u201cbetter\u201d-\u201cworse\u201d differential has shifted to slightly more positive relative the nadir in April, it is substantially below the January 2025 high point.<\/p>\n

Original Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conference Board \u00ae improved by 2.0 points in July to 97.2 (1985=100), from 95.2 in June (revised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[28,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-46602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}