US consumer confidence fell this month by the most since the September 2001 terrorist attacks because of worries about incomes, jobs and war with Iraq.
The Conference Board's consumer confidence index plunged to a nine-year low of 64 from 78.8 last month. Except for a 17-point drop the month of the attacks, this month's 14.8-point decline was the largest since April 1980, when a US mission to rescue American hostages in Iran failed.
The "confidence readings paint a gloomy picture," said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's consumer research center. "Lackluster job and financial markets, rising fuel costs and the increasing threat of war and terrorism appear to have taken a toll."
With three straight months of waning optimism and household incomes pinched by the highest gasoline prices since June 2001, companies are using discounts to attract customers.
A sustained decline in confidence threatens to weaken consumer spending.
Same-store sales in the first 25 days of this month, typically one of the weakest months of the year for retailers, fell 2.1 percent from a month earlier. While some of the decrease was due to a snowstorm that paralyzed parts of the Northeast US last week, sales had already been weakening in prior weeks, according to the Instinet Research Redbook report.
So far, people are confident about the housing market. Sales of previously owned homes rose last month to the highest on record, fueled by the lowest mortgage rates since the 1960s. Home resales increased to an annual pace of 6.09 million, the National Association of Realtors said.
Economists had expected the consumer sentiment index to fall to 77 this month, based on the median of 62 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. The lowest estimate was 74. The Conference Board surveys 5,000 households about general economic conditions, their employment prospects and their spending plans. Research has shown confidence levels correlate more closely with current spending than with future spending.
Still, a 1998 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found "questions that ask about consumers' perceptions of job availability typically have the most explanatory power for future movements in consumption."
Americans were less upbeat this month about their present situation and the future. The percentage of consumers who expect their incomes to increase six months from now fell to the lowest since the Conference Board began keeping records in 1967.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS