WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ outlook on the economy improved modestly in November, lifted by expectations for lower inflation and more hiring.
The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index ticked up to 111.7 from 109.6 in October. The small increase followed a big gain in October.
Rising consumer confidence suggests Americans may spend more in the coming months, which would help boost economic growth. Yet Americans have been spending at a healthy clip for much of the past two years even as confidence measures have been low, a sign that sentiment surveys may not be as useful a guide to the economy's direction as they were in the past.
The uptick comes after President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election. The Conference Board doesn't break out its responses by party, but another measure of consumer sentiment by the University of Michigan showed that optimism about the economy jumped among Republicans after the election.
In the Conference Board's report, the proportion of Americans who anticipate a recession in the next 12 months fell to the lowest level since the group first began asking the question in July 2022. And consumers' optimism about future hiring rose to its highest level in nearly three years.
The survey found that Americans' expectations for future inflation fell to its lowest level since March 2020, nearly a year before consumer prices began rising quickly. When asked about their hopes for 2025, “consumers overwhelmingly selected higher prices as their top concern and lower prices as their top wish for the new year,” the Conference Board said.
The report comes just hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he would impose stiff 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% on imports from China. Economists and some retailers warn that such duties, if enacted, would be inflationary.
“Households for now seem to have their heads in the sand about the potential uplifts to consumer prices from tariffs and deportations, or they think Trump wasn’t serious about his intentions during the campaign,” Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a client note.
Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, minutes from last month’s meeting showed.
From Wall Street trading floors to the Federal Reserve to economists sipping coffee in their home offices, the first Friday morning of the month typically brings a quiet hush around 8:30 a.m. eastern, as everyone awaits the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
U.S. stocks are adding to their records as Wall Street cruises toward the finish line of another winning week. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Friday and is heading for its seventh winning week in the last nine.
U.S. stocks edged up to more records. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.4%. All three set all-time highs. Technology stocks helped lead the way after OpenAI announced partnerships with South Korean companies for its Stargate artificial-intelligence infrastructure project. Fair Isaac surged to its best day in nearly three years after unveiling a program where customers can potentially bypass big credit bureaus for FICO credit scores. Stock indexes also rose across much of Europe and Asia, while Treasury yields eased in the bond market.
U.S. stocks are drifting toward more records as Wall Street still doesn’t seem to care much about the latest shutdown of the U.S. government.
It pays less and less to buy and flip a home these days. The typical home flipping profit margin fell in the second quarter to its lowest level since 2008, with a typical return of 25.1% before expenses. That's according to an analysis by Attom, a real estate data company. Rising home prices are driving up acquisition costs, making flipping less profitable. The median price for a flipped home reached a record high of $259,700, according to Attom. Meanwhile, with many aspiring homeowners priced out of the market, real estate investors are taking up a bigger share of U.S. home sales overall.
A new report finds the Department of Government Efficiency’s remaking of the federal workforce has battered the Washington job market and put more households in the metropolitan area in financial distress.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday signaled a cautious approach to future interest rate cuts, in sharp contrast with other Fed officials who have called for a more urgent approach. In remarks in Providence, Rhode Island, Powell noted that there are risks to both of the Fed’s goals of seeking maximum employment and stable prices. His approach is in sharp contrast to some members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee who are pushing for faster cuts.
Wall Street is rising toward more records, led by a rally for technology stocks. The S&P 500 rose 0.7% Thursday.
Nvidia announces a new partnership with Intel to work on custom data centers and personal computer products.
