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Speaker 1: at ad R dot org. Stocks are advancing after last
Speaker 1: night's presidential debate. Consumer confidence data boosting optimism in the
Speaker 1: US economy. Will have more on that confidence data coming
Speaker 1: up on taking stock SMP five hundred index up thirteen
Speaker 1: now to fifty nine, a gain of six tenths of
Speaker 1: one percent down, Industrials up one thirty one points, up
Speaker 1: seven tenths of one percent, as stack up forty five
Speaker 1: a gain of nine tenths of one per cent, the
Speaker 1: tenure up seven thirty seconds yield there one point five
Speaker 1: six gold down twelve ninety beams, decline of one percent,
Speaker 1: and crude oil slumping three percent now a barrel of
Speaker 1: West Texas Intermedia down a dollar thirty six. Right now
Speaker 1: on w t I, I'm Charlie Pellet and that's subloom
Speaker 1: Bred Business Flash. You're listening to Taking Stock with pim
Speaker 1: Box and Kathleen Hayes on Bloomberg Radio. Consumer confidence is
Speaker 1: growing stronger every day. No, it's not just the lyrics
Speaker 1: to a Chicago song. It's a description of what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world economy. Lynn Franco is Director of
Speaker 1: Economic Indicators for the Conference Board, and she joins us
Speaker 1: here in studio. Linn Franco, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: being with us. Good to be back. All right, give
Speaker 1: us the details of this latest report. Oh, we had
Speaker 1: some pretty good news back to back monthly gained or
Speaker 1: one oh four point one in September, which last time
Speaker 1: we were this confident was before the Great Recession. So
Speaker 1: it are nine year high. And basically what we're seeing
Speaker 1: that's driving this is consumers assessment of the present situation
Speaker 1: that's also at a nine year high. So that tells
Speaker 1: us that the economy remains relatively strong and expectations are
Speaker 1: that this is going to continue. I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: the present situation in de because yes, it is strong.
Speaker 1: In fact, if we could throw up a chart here
Speaker 1: on radio, you'd see that it is higher than actually
Speaker 1: the overall consumer confidence because expectations are so much lower.
Speaker 1: They look a lot flatter and more than what economists
Speaker 1: has told me. That If you want the part of
Speaker 1: this report that tracks spending more closely, it is expectations.
Speaker 1: It's looked to the future, and I would say that's
Speaker 1: a signal if that correlation is true. That doesn't say
Speaker 1: this necessarily translates into a lot more spending. Even though
Speaker 1: it's great that people are feeling better, particularly about labor market, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily translate into more robust economic growth either.
Speaker 1: It's sort of more of the same, which is a
Speaker 1: theme that we've had. Um. But I think the key
Speaker 1: takeaway here is really the fact that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: this is sort of typical behavior that we see during
Speaker 1: an expansion, where the present situation continues to grow, expectations
Speaker 1: tend to level off, and I think it just shows
Speaker 1: us that the economy is still on solid footing, at
Speaker 1: least that's how consumers assess it. Now. I just want
Speaker 1: to read into some of the details, and I know
Speaker 1: that there are many of them. So I'm just going
Speaker 1: to give you a little thought here, which is the
Speaker 1: automobile sector, particularly because you ask the question do you
Speaker 1: plan to buy within the next six months? Uh? And
Speaker 1: there's yes uh. And then in the various categories, weren't
Speaker 1: just if you could tell us a little bit about that,
Speaker 1: just noting if there's a trend or something we should
Speaker 1: pay attention to. Sure, I think here, you know, we've
Speaker 1: seen pretty robust growth in auto sales for several months now.
Speaker 1: There's no indication that that's going to fall off at
Speaker 1: this moment. You know, we might get a little fluctuation
Speaker 1: month to month, but if we go back a year
Speaker 1: or two ago, we're still relatively strong. So yes, consumers
Speaker 1: do remain sort of on the sidelines. There's still careful
Speaker 1: about where they're going to spend their money, when they're
Speaker 1: going to spend their money, but they are willing to
Speaker 1: make these big ticket item purchases. You know, I was
Speaker 1: sitting here thinking about this consumer confidence number, and it's
Speaker 1: the strongest in nine years, so I thought. But I remember,
Speaker 1: because I've been following this for a long time, when
Speaker 1: it used to be easily in the hundred and twenties,
Speaker 1: instead of like the one oh four's. So I went
Speaker 1: back on my Bloomberg, Uh, went into my eco page
Speaker 1: and into the historical price page, and the high and
Speaker 1: consumer confidence was January thirty one of two thousand, it
Speaker 1: was at one forty four, almost one forty. Consumer confidence
Speaker 1: in the two thousands ran consistently a lot higher than
Speaker 1: it runs. Now. Do you need to rejig your base?
Speaker 1: Is something off or people just a lot less confident
Speaker 1: than they used to be. I think we need to
Speaker 1: put it into perspective. That was sort of the Internet bubble,
Speaker 1: and we see how that ended up. So typically what
Speaker 1: we've seen it runs somewhere between a hundred two a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty. And I also think we need to
Speaker 1: put this in perspective. Um, during other recessions, we had
Speaker 1: seen consumer confidence dropped to about sixty maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit lower at our lowest point we were at during
Speaker 1: this recession. So we have come a long way, um,
Speaker 1: and I think we may have a little bit further togo,
Speaker 1: but I think these levels and the overall trend are
Speaker 1: positive news. All Right, a little bit more detail on
Speaker 1: the trend in vacations. You know, I was looking that
Speaker 1: we're talking about automobiles, you think that's going to remain steady.
Speaker 1: What about vacation data, We see the vacations here as
Speaker 1: well that it's holding up quite well. And now I
Speaker 1: think we get sort of into that time where we
Speaker 1: start thinking about our next vacation, our next time off.
Speaker 1: At least maybe I do. But anyway, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to hold up to again. You know, consumers, now
Speaker 1: the confidence level is high, so that means they're willing
Speaker 1: to spend. They have the ability to spend, it's just
Speaker 1: making those decisions. I mean, there's still a little bit cautious.
Speaker 1: We're all sort of scarred. But in terms of autos, vacation,
Speaker 1: and even in homes, I think we have positive news.
Speaker 1: So when you look at the election, and of course,
Speaker 1: coming off of the debates last night, the certainly right
Speaker 1: up there with everybody's minds, so much so that Mike
Speaker 1: McDonald from our Bloomberg Intelligence team looked at Bloomberg's Consumer
Speaker 1: Comfort Index and tracked how it shows how college educated
Speaker 1: consumers and people who have at least some college or
Speaker 1: more and incomes over a hundred thousand, it looks like
Speaker 1: their confidence is rising and falling. With Clinton, Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: standings in the polls, and of course the Mexican pay
Speaker 1: So rally today when many people said that she beat
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the debate last night at the conference board.
Speaker 1: Are you guys looking at this? Are you tracking confidence
Speaker 1: versus the elections? We've actually gone back and look at
Speaker 1: a few articles at the New York Times has done
Speaker 1: in the past, and generally what they've seen is in
Speaker 1: September of confidence readings are above a hundred, the party
Speaker 1: in office tends to stay in office. The last exception, however,
Speaker 1: was the re election of President Obama, ware confidence levels
Speaker 1: were a little bit below seventy. Um. But this does,
Speaker 1: I guess point sort of towards positive news for the
Speaker 1: current administration. What about the specific just quickly about Ohio.
Speaker 1: What did I tell you there about the confidence in Ohio?
Speaker 1: Because I was looking at that. You do it by state,
Speaker 1: almost in region. I was thinking, here in eighty three
Speaker 1: point five, that's down from nineties six point nine. Right. Um. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: what we do with the states is we tend to
Speaker 1: look at a three month moving average kind of takes
Speaker 1: out a little bit of the noise. What we've seen
Speaker 1: across the nine regions basically is there have been improvements
Speaker 1: over the course of the past year. It's been a
Speaker 1: little bit bumpy. The one exception has sort of been
Speaker 1: what's happening in terms of the West, South Central or
Speaker 1: in Texas because of oil prices, well at oil prices
Speaker 1: can certainly make it consumer less confident when they go
Speaker 1: up too high. Of Kathy Hayes, along with Kim Fox
Speaker 1: and Mrs Bloomberg. Coming up on taking stock, will be
Speaker 1: speaking with Margaret Tullive, white House correspondent for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: Presidential debate recap and what's next for the candidates