{"id":429119,"date":"2026-03-31T21:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/us-march-consumer-confidence-91-8-vs-88-0-expected\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:00:19","slug":"us-march-consumer-confidence-91-8-vs-88-0-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/03\/us-march-consumer-confidence-91-8-vs-88-0-expected\/","title":{"rendered":"US March consumer confidence 91.8 vs 88.0 expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/investinglive.com\/news\/us-february-consumer-confidence-912-vs-870-expected-20260224\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow\">Prior <\/a>was 91.2 prior<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Details:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Present situation <\/li>\n<li>Expectations <\/li>\n<li>Jobs plentiful <\/li>\n<li>Jobs hard to get <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">US consumer confidence opened 2026 on shaky ground. The Conference Board&#8217;s Consumer Confidence Index plunged 9.7 points in January to 84.5, its lowest reading since May 2014 and well below the 91.1 level economists had forecast. The decline reflected growing anxiety over geopolitical tensions, persistent affordability pressures, and ongoing trade policy uncertainty. All five components of the index deteriorated, with the Present Situation Index dropping to 113.7 and the Expectations Index falling to 65.1 \u2014 well below the 80 threshold that has historically signaled recession risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">February brought a modest rebound, with the headline index rising 2.2 points to 91.2. The improvement was driven primarily by the Expectations Index, which climbed 4.8 points to 72.0, while the Present Situation Index slipped further to 120.0. Despite the uptick, the Expectations Index remained below 80 for the thirteenth consecutive month \u2014 the longest sustained stretch below that level since the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The University of Michigan&#8217;s Consumer Sentiment Index told a similar story. Michigan&#8217;s gauge came in at 56.6 in February, barely changed from January&#8217;s 56.4, with households across income groups, age brackets, and political affiliations reporting weaker expectations for personal finances. Year-ahead inflation expectations held steady at 3.4%, halting six months of declines, while longer-term expectations edged down slightly to 3.2%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Spending intentions in early 2026 have gravitated toward affordable necessities and lower-cost services, with restaurants, streaming, and personal care topping the list of planned outlays. Vacation plans softened in February, and while big-ticket purchase intentions improved slightly, consumers remained cautious about expensive discretionary spending.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Taken together, the early-2026 data paint a picture of a consumer base that views current conditions as tolerable but is increasingly wary about what lies ahead \u2014 a dynamic with significant implications for the roughly two-thirds of US GDP driven by household spending.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior was 91.2 prior Details: Present situation Expectations Jobs plentiful Jobs hard to get US consumer confidence opened 2026 on shaky ground. The Conference Board&#8217;s Consumer Confidence Index plunged 9.7 points in January to 84.5, its lowest reading since May 2014 and well below the 91.1 level economists had forecast. The decline reflected growing anxiety [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}