Consumer sentiment likely recovered this month
It’s likely that a Friday report will show consumers perked up this month, supported by solid jobs news and lower gas prices, according to a consensus forecast.
Economists polled by MarketWatch are looking for a preliminary August reading for the consumer-sentiment gauge of 82.3, up half a point from a final July result of 81.8. The index had dropped 0.7 point in July. For context, the gauge from the University of Michigan/Thomson Reuters averaged 86.9 over the year leading up to the recession that began in December 2007.
While most economists do think consumers are in a better mood this month, a volatile stock market as well as international tensions could weigh on sentiment. Analysts watch sentiment levels to get a feeling for the direction of consumer spending, which is the backbone of the U.S. economy. A report released earlier this week signaled that spending in retail stores has been weak in recent months.
The sentiment-gauge will be released at 9:55 a.m. Eastern.
Ahead of that report is fresh data on manufacturing trends, and economists are looking for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to report a gauge of regional manufacturers’ views on business conditions pulled back this month to 20 after hitting a more-than-four-year high of 25.6 in July. Readings above zero indicate that more respondents said business conditions are “higher” than the number that said they’re “lower.” The Empire State Manufacturing Survey will be released at 8:30 a.m.
At 9:15 a.m. the Federal Reserve will release its monthly snapshot of industrial production and capacity utilization, and economists expect to see slight increase for both measures in July.
Elsewhere Friday morning, the U.S. Labor Department will report on producer prices. Economists expect to see this gauge show wholesale inflation slowed to a gain of 0.1% in July, compared with an 0.4% increase in June. Some increases for producer prices will eventually be passed along to consumers.
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