Consumer Confidence Up For The Third Month In A Row

A private sector report released today revealed that the US consumer confidence in the month of May has touched the highest mark in more than two years as worries over the labor market are abating continuously. It has risen for the third consecutive month now. An industry group named the Conference Board announced that its index of consumer attitudes in May climbed 63.3, the best level after March 2008. The index stood at 57.7 in April. Analysts were expecting a reading of 59 for May. These results indicate that intensified selling in the struggling US stock markets earlier this month and rising worries over Europe’s debt crisis have failed to register much impact on Americans. The cutoff date for the industry group’s May survey was May 18 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average faced the biggest intraday crash of nearly 1,000 points on May 6. The jury is yet to decide on how consumers have reacted to the latest downturn in markets. Carl Birkelbach, chairman and CEO of Birkelbach Investment Securities said, "This was before the market started dropping, and I don't think anyone is paying attention to it because of what the market is doing now. We're in a crisis mode. Confidence was strong for a while, but it will start to fade." The present situation index touched the highest level since December 2008 by moving up to 30.2 from 28.2 and the expectations index achieved the best level since August 2007 by climbing to 85.3 in May. Consumers' labor market assessment further improved. The "jobs hard to get" index stepped down to 43.6 from 44.8 and the "jobs plentiful" index changed sparsely at 4.6%. The news followed a huge sell-off in the Dow after the index opened 200 points lower today. It fell below 10,000 for the first time since February. The S&P Retail Index was also trudging below led by heavy losses posted by retail stocks like Borders BGP, Netflix NFLX, Saks SKS and Office Depot ODP. Read more from Benzinga's Markets.