The group, the Conference Board, said its sentiment index increased to 45.4 from a revised August reading of 45.2, which was the lowest since April 2009. A report on home prices showed values dropped less than had been forecast in the year ended in July.
The confidence reading signals that hiring has not improved since August, when the economy failed to create jobs and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent. Falling stock prices and concern that the crisis in Europe will undermine the global recovery may also be shaking Americans’ resolve, raising the risk that spending will cool during the holiday shopping season.
“Consumers remain very concerned about income, employment and the state of the economy,” said John Herrmann, a senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Global Markets in Boston. “All of these factors point to even weaker labor market conditions as we get closer to the end of the year.”
The Standard Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 4.1 percent in July compared with the same month in 2010, the group said. The median forecast of 28 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had projected a 4.4 percent decline. Values were little changed in July from the prior month after adjusting for seasonal changes,.
Investigations into bank foreclosure practices caused lags in processing that may have helped stabilize prices in recent months, said Celia Chen, a housing economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pa.
“Due to foreclosure processing delays, fewer distressed sales are occurring relative to normal sales,” Ms. Chen said. “With more distressed homes likely to be sold in coming months, house prices will depreciate further before they stabilize.”
Economists expected that the Conference Board’s September confidence gauge would climb to 46, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from 40 to 49 in the survey of 74 economists. The index averaged 98 during the economic expansion that ended in December 2007.
The Conference Board’s data showed a measure of present conditions declined to 32.5, the lowest since January, from 34.3 in August. The measure of expectations for the next six months rose to 54 from 52.4.
The share of consumers who said jobs were hard to get increased to 50, the highest level since May 1983, from 48.5 in August. That may signal a worsening of the September employment data.
Confidence dropped in six of nine regions, according to the report.
The percentage of respondents in the Conference Board survey expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months rose to 12 percent from 11.8 the previous month.
The proportion expecting their incomes to rise over the next six months decreased to 13.3 percent, the lowest since October, from 14.3 in August.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d460144c87654519336c03238669486f