News on the economy had been promising these last few days, especially the GDP increase in the last quarter. Today comes a not-so-good report on consumer spending. As Victoria Stilwell reports at Bloomberg:
Consumer spending in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in September as incomes (PITLCHNG) rose at the slowest pace of the year, indicating the economy will have difficulty sustaining a pickup in growth into the end of the year. Expenditures decreased 0.2 percent last month, weaker than any economist projected in a Bloomberg survey, after rising 0.5 percent in August, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Incomes increased 0.2 percent, the smallest gain since December.
The hard-eyed take on this, from Zero Hedge is:
Goodbye GDP hopes: Consumer Spending tumbled 0.2% against expectations of growing 0.1%, dropping at the fastest pace since October 2009. This is the biggest miss since Jan 2014 – in the middle of the PolarVortex. Did it snow in September, and whatever happened to that spending spree that lower gas prices were supposed to lead to? And whatever happened to that surge in consumer confidence – guess broke Americans can’t monetize being “confident” about their rising wages just yet…
Question: How does an apprehensive consumer vote?
