| Prior | Consensus | Consensus Range | Actual | |
| Consumer Confidence - Level | 70.8 | 70.9 | 68.0 to 77.0 | 70.2 |
CC came in below the prior (which was revised to 71.6) and below a more optimistic consensus near the low end of the consensus range.
Consumer Confidence this year has been optimistic, this marks a pretty decent drop from the revised 71.6.
Probably having to due with the trend in gas prices, CC's 6 month inflation expectations jumped to the highest level in the last six months.
Also out at 10 a.m., the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index...
| Released On 3/27/2012 10:00:00 AM For Mar, 2012 | ||||||||||
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This is a huge miss, actually the largest in 10 months and less then half of the lowest consensus estimate, so it seems clear that the economic data that had been so rosy during the first several months of the year (again largely due to arbitrary seasonal adjustments) is now either reversing or more likely continuing on a downward trajectory as the seasonal adjustments in most cases were arbitrary, unfortunately for the administration, we are out of the season of seasonal adjustments.
Seven out of the nine sub-catagories in the Richmond F_E_D missed and pretty big. The bright spot was wages which were up, however the number of employees fell by half and expectations for the number of employees six months out also fell.
More from Bloomberg:
Richmond is the fourth regional report to show slowing underway in manufacturing orders. The Richmond Fed's new orders index slowed by 10 points to 11, still over zero to indicate a monthly increase but significantly less of an increase than February. But the slowing in news orders isn't yet slowing the build in backlog where the index is unchanged at four. Clear disappointments in the report are a significant slowing in monthly growth for shipments and a tangible slowing in employment growth. Slowing orders and the slowdown in shipments are not positive signals for future employment.
The headline index, at seven vs February's 20, underscore the monthly softening. Price indications show moderate pressure for raw material costs and moderate pricing power for finished goods.
Results in today's report are very similar to results in yesterday's report from the Dallas Fed and mid-month results from the New York and Philadelphia Feds. The manufacturing sector has gotten off to an uneven start this year with some indications positive and others, including January durable goods data, strikingly negative. Durable goods orders for February will be tomorrow's highlight for the calendar.
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