US consumer confidence dips again to start the year, according to business group
Source: Associated Press
Business
US consumer confidence dips again to start the year, according to business group
By MATT OTT
Updated 11:54 AM EST, January 28, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence dipped for the second consecutive month in January, a business research group said Tuesday. ... The Conference Board reported that its consumer confidence index retreated this month to 104.1, from 109.5 in December. That is worse than the economist projections for a reading of 105.8.
December’s reading was revised up by 4.8 points but still represented a decline from November. ... The consumer confidence index measures both Americans’ assessment of current economic conditions and their outlook for the next six months.
Consumers appeared increasingly confident heading into the end of 2024 and spending during the holiday season was resolute. In the face of higher borrowing costs, retail sales rose 0.4% in December and stores generally reported healthy sales during the winter holiday shopping season.
The board said that consumers’ view of current conditions tumbled 9.7 points to a reading of 134.3 in January and views on current labor market conditions fell for the first time since September.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/consumer-confidence-conference-board-spending-economy-31aab08b4281d3d23961c5c25fef6cca
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-consumer-confidence-deteriorates-further-january-2025-01-28/
US consumer confidence deteriorates further in January
By Reuters
January 28, 202510:15 AM EST Updated 2 hours ago
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https://www.wsj.com/economy/u-s-consumers-lose-confidence-at-start-of-trump-second-term-0e48375b
Economy
U.S. Consumers Lose Confidence at Start of Trump’s Second Term
Conference Board’s index falls more than expected
By Ed Frankl
https://twitter.com/Ed_Frankl
edward.frankl@wsj.com
Updated Jan. 28, 2025 11:22 am ET
= new reply since forum marked as read
....when a coupla weeks ago it was, "It's Biden's Fault!" Jackasses. Every one of 'em. 
"Brilliant"...................
"Can't have this negative news. All is GREAT in America now! Bestest economy EVER" 
The CPI also increased 0.4% in December
CPI: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0
CPI news release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Link to the consumer confidence source: https://www.conference-board.org/topics/consumer-confidence
GRAPH 
I notice that consumer confidence figures were considerably higher pre-pandemic -- I think that might be why so many told pollsters pre-election that their financial situation was better 4 years ago then now -- they were probably thinking pre-pandemic for all I can think of when they respond like this, not to conditions in fall 2020, which of course was deep in the first year of the pandemic.
The link also has a graph of the two components of the consumer confidence index -- the Present Situation index and the Expectations index. The Expectations index has been hovering around 80 (1985=100) for years - " that usually signals a recession ahead."
There's another graph there --
Latest reading: 65% (this has been trending down from a peak of about 73% in May 2023)
For some reason the Conference Board's consumer confidence inflation outlook is always much higher than that of the competing University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which is usually in the low 3's percent IIRC
Another factoid:
January 20 was of course inauguration day. So the survey was taken before the blizzard of executive orders and the steeply falling grocery prices we have been seeing lately (sarcasm on the steeply falling grocery prices part).