Xinhua, Washington :
U.S. consumer sentiment declined to a four-month low in March as concerns grew about the outlook of the overall economy, a survey showed Friday.
The final reading of the consumer sentiment index in March fell to 80 from 81.6 in February, according to the monthly Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumers. That was almost unchanged from the preliminary reading of 79.9 for this month.
The sub-index of current economic conditions, which reflects Americans’ perceptions of their financial situation and whether they consider it a good time to buy big-ticket items like houses or cars, rose to 95.7 in March from 95.4 in February, but lower than its preliminary reading of 96.1.
The sub-index gauging consumer expectations for six months from now, which more closely projects the direction of consumer spending, declined to 70 in March from 72.7 in the prior month, but slightly better than the preliminary reading of 69.4.
“While consumers still anticipate that the national economy will continue to grow during the year ahead, they have become increasingly concerned about the ability of the economy to avoid a downturn sometime in the next five years,” survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.
“Of more immediate concern, consumers have voiced their dismay about the slowdown in home value gains, a slowdown that was expected to continue in the year ahead,” he added.
The consumer sentiment index, released twice each month, one preliminary and the other final, averaged 64.2 during the latest recession from December 2007 to June 2009, and was at 89 in the five years leading up to the recession.
