The preliminary July U of Michigan confidence # was much less than expected at 64.6 vs the consensus of 70 and it’s down from 70.8 in June. It follows 4 months of gains and it’s the lowest since March when it was at 57.3. The biggest contributor to the decline was the future expectations component which fell from 69.2 to 60.9. Current conditions also fell, down to 70.4 from 73.2. From their individual lows, current conditions are still up 12.9 points and future expectations are up 10.4 points. One year inflation expectations fell .1% to 3% but 5 year expectations rose .1% to 3.1%, matching the highest level since Aug ’08. This is a phone-in survey that happened within days ago so is thus a timely snapshot of consumer attitudes and the weakness likely still reflects a difficult labor market.
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