Some good news going into the holiday shopping season — consumers are feeling the best they have about their personal financial situations in almost two decades.
That comes care of the latest report from the Conference Board Index released yesterday (Oct. 31), which is built out of data collected through the 18th of last month. All in all, the Index figure was 125.9 — up notably up from the August reading of 120.6.
The latest number was above the pre-release estimates of of 121.0.
“Consumer confidence increased to its highest level in almost 17 years (Dec. 2000, 128.6) in October after remaining relatively flat in September,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board.
Driving consumers’ more optimistic assessment of the situation on the ground was a stronger job market (which got its strongest Index rating since 2001), more confidence in short-term outlooks and greater faith in the longer term expansion of the economy for the remainder of 2017.
The bounced-up consumer outlook also seems to match a recent release of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)’s Small Business Optimism Index. It seems consumers are getting more optimistic about their future at roughly the same rate SMB owners are feeling better about theirs. Those two figures are generally correlated with each other and have been since the financial crisis.
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