Producers may be apprehensive about economic prospects, but consumers are upbeat. As Danielle Trubow of Bloomberg reports:
Consumer confidence advanced in October as Americans enjoyed further price drops at the gas pump and the job market continued to improve. The Conference Board’s indexclimbed to 94.5 this month, the highest since October 2007, from a September reading of 89 that was stronger than initially estimated, the New York-based private research group said today.
As for the third of those “closely watched” numbers, housing prices were up but not as much as expected. Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports that:
Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose at a weaker pace in the year ended in August as borrowing standards remain tight and wage gains fail to accelerate. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 5.6 percent from August 2013, the smallest gain since November 2012, after rising 6.7 percent in the year ended in July, a report from the group showed today in New York.
So, the economy continues to send out mixed signals.
