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Speaker 1: Global business news twenty four hours a day, if Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot Com, the radio, plus mobile apps and on your radio.

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Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg business flash from Bloomberg World Handquarters.

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Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellet. Stalks of a race their monthly gain

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Speaker 1: amid thin trading volume. Apple slumping ahead of Friday's jobs report.

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Speaker 1: The dollar rose, Oil fell. West Texas Intermediate town one

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Speaker 1: point three percent now down sixty two cents forty six

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Speaker 1: thirty six for barrel of West Texas intermediate crude, Brent

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Speaker 1: crude is down one point nine percent. We'll have more

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Speaker 1: on oil coming up on the show today with Stephen

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Speaker 1: Short of the Short Group. We've got the tenure down

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Speaker 1: four thirty seconds, that yield one point five seven percent,

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Speaker 1: SMP down nine to seventy, A dropped there of four

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Speaker 1: tenths of one percent down, Industrials down ninety, A drop

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Speaker 1: of five tenths of one percent, Gold down eleven sixty.

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Speaker 1: The ounce a drop there of nine tenths of one

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Speaker 1: percent right now an ounce of gold thirteen twelve. I'm

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Speaker 1: Charlie Public. That's a bloom Bread business flash. You're listening

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Speaker 1: to Taking stock with Bim Box and Kathleen Hay's on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Are you feeling a more confident, more upbeat

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Speaker 1: about the possibility of a raise this year or the next,

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Speaker 1: more upbeat perhaps about the opportunity to change jobs. Well,

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Speaker 1: then you might be one of the people that the

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Speaker 1: New York based Conference Board talked to in their latest survey.

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Speaker 1: There are a measure of consumer confidence increased to nearly

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Speaker 1: a one year high. The expectations gauge also climbing present conditions.

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Speaker 1: It's best treating in nine years. So what is driving

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Speaker 1: this and can it last? Let's put that question now

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Speaker 1: to Lynn Franco. She's director of Economic Indicators at the

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Speaker 1: Conference Board. Lynn, welcome back. Good to be back, Kathleen.

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Speaker 1: So one oh one point one. That's pretty uh good

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Speaker 1: beat by the forecaster above the forecast of the highest

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Speaker 1: since September. So what what's going on here? Well, we've

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Speaker 1: seen sort of a combination of factors. We had a

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Speaker 1: nice increase in the present situation component and that's now

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Speaker 1: at back to pre recession levels, so it's been sort

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Speaker 1: of a long climb. Expectations also gained some grounds, So

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Speaker 1: I think overall, consumers are feeling a lot the more

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Speaker 1: positive about business conditions, employment conditions, UH, and the outlook

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Speaker 1: ahead is a little bit improved as well. Now let's

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Speaker 1: go right to one of to me, the most important

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Speaker 1: parts of this latest report, the Conference Board survey. It

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Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the labor market. It

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Speaker 1: seems to pretty well reflect what people are seeing at

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Speaker 1: work or you know, their their neighbor down the street,

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Speaker 1: maybe even their own family. And you ask if jobs

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Speaker 1: are getting more plentiful, if they're about the same, or

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Speaker 1: they're hard to get and the jobs are plentiful. Response

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Speaker 1: was pretty good in this report, absolutely climb to twenty

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Speaker 1: six percent, and that's at the highest level we've seen

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Speaker 1: since August of two thousand and seven. UH. And also

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Speaker 1: worth noting is that business conditions good also UM UH

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Speaker 1: spiked up a bit and that's at levels not seen

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Speaker 1: since actually two thousand and one. And business conditions tend

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Speaker 1: to precede employment UM, you know, as conditions have to

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Speaker 1: improve before employers add more to the workforce. So I

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Speaker 1: think overall it's pretty good for both, you know, the

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Speaker 1: economy as a whole and for the labor market. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean two thousand seven, that's right before the UH,

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Speaker 1: before the crisis started about a year later. It was

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Speaker 1: before the housing bubble had really bursts. So to be

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Speaker 1: at that level in terms of jobs are plentiful something

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Speaker 1: that it seems very significant. However, those claiming jobs are

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Speaker 1: hard to get also rose. It went from twenty two

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Speaker 1: point one percent of your respondence to twenty three point

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Speaker 1: four percent, So if you think about it, yeah, there

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Speaker 1: the months piece seeen jobs are plenty of well somewhat

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Speaker 1: outnumbers those who are having a tough time still though

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Speaker 1: nearly a fourth of the people you talk to think

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Speaker 1: that it's not that easy to get a job right

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Speaker 1: now right, And part of that could be that, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're seeing more people now willing to come back into

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Speaker 1: the labor market, so we get a little bit of

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Speaker 1: a spike there, But overall, I think that's been holding

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Speaker 1: at a relatively a good level, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: we continue to see improvements in business conditions hopefully as

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Speaker 1: a prelude to even further improvement in the employment picture.

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Speaker 1: And of course, uh that's also a very important simple

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Speaker 1: observation that the labor market is very flexible, and people

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Speaker 1: come and go, and if you don't think you're going

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Speaker 1: to get a job, then maybe you do just you,

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Speaker 1: because work live on your savings, you'kick unemployment and then

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Speaker 1: when you think things are getting better, that's when you say, aha,

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Speaker 1: I'll start looking at it for another job. But don't

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Speaker 1: you interview the same group of people for a long time.

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Speaker 1: Do you find that within your survey that the people

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Speaker 1: come and go as much as they do from the economy, Well,

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Speaker 1: it's always a different set of folks every month. But

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Speaker 1: I think overall it's it's the trend, and I think

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Speaker 1: the trend has been you know, despite these months to

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Speaker 1: month fluctuations that the job situation has improved. The percentage

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Speaker 1: if we go back a few years of people saying

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Speaker 1: jobs are hard to get has come down significantly. So

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Speaker 1: while we get sort of these little fluctuations months to months,

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Speaker 1: overall it's it's quite an improvement from you know, close

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Speaker 1: to let's say, safety percent almost back at the height

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Speaker 1: of the Great Recession, who were saying jobs were hard

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Speaker 1: to get. Buying plans, there's a lot of questions there

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Speaker 1: when it comes to housing, when it comes to cars,

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Speaker 1: what did you see in your latest surveillance, Well, we're

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Speaker 1: seeing that, you know, in terms of intentions to purchase.

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Speaker 1: Let's saying otto, that's that's holding up pretty well, and

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Speaker 1: I think that's reflected in what we're seeing in the

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Speaker 1: other data. A little bit of an uptick in home purchasing.

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Speaker 1: We know, that's sort of a double sort of prices

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Speaker 1: have been going up, so that tends to uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of uh, I guess block a few folks from

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Speaker 1: accessing due to lack of credit and a variety of

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Speaker 1: other factors. But overall, I think that's positive and that

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Speaker 1: tends to lead to uh, you know, folks buy more

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Speaker 1: durables to replenish either what's going in the home or

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Speaker 1: to you know, sort of furnish new home. So overall,

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Speaker 1: I think this is a sort of pretty positive news,

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Speaker 1: and I think overall we might see a little bit

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Speaker 1: of an uptick in economic growth, hopefully over the next

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Speaker 1: couple of months. Uh as the condy strongly for the

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Speaker 1: Federal Reserve to raise interest rates maybe twice this year,

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Speaker 1: Lune or do you think that might throw some cold

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Speaker 1: water on consumer confidence and they're concerning confidence about business conditions.

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Speaker 1: I think the consensus still is that what we might

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Speaker 1: get one rate hike most likely at the end of

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Speaker 1: the year, very unlikely that we would get to from

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Speaker 1: what you've seen in consumer confidence. Do you agree? Do

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Speaker 1: you think that's a good idea just to do one hike? Um,

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Speaker 1: I mean spaked into sort of consumer confidence when we

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Speaker 1: take a look at sort of the you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: interest rate to expectations. Most people are already expecting that

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Speaker 1: one hip. I think if we were to have to

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Speaker 1: that would really attend shock folks, as I think one

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Speaker 1: is sort of baked in. Two would be an exception. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: might just might just burn that cake around the edges.

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Speaker 1: All right, Lynn Frankel, thank you so very much. He's

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Speaker 1: director of Economic Indicators at the Conference Board, talking about

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Speaker 1: and helping move up in consumer confidence. People's question about

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Speaker 1: our jobs getting more plentiful. The best bestens just before

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Speaker 1: the Great Recession. I'm Kathleen Hayes, and this is bloom

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Speaker 1: Bird Case Shiller. Home price is closely watched in the

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Speaker 1: economy at the FED to Reserve among home builders, and

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Speaker 1: they're continuing to rise. Find out why it's not foreign

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Speaker 1: money that's driving it. That's next on taking stock