Consumer confidence retreats - Kansas City Business Journal:

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Nationally, consumer confidence dropped sharplgin June, cutting into three months of gainsa that had seen the overall indedx more than double. The Conference Board's Consumefr Confidence Index fellby 5.5 points to 49.3 in June. Florida’s consumer confidence index for June fell threre points last monthto 68, the result of bad economif news including the bankruptcy of General Motoras Corp.
, foreclosures and a spike in Florida’s unemployment according to a new University of Florida While Floridians’ perceptions of personal finances compareed with a year ago is up thres points to 44 from a revised May reading of 41, othef perceptions were lower or the same as, last month. For perceptions of U.S. economic conditions over the next year fell seve n pointsto 65, while perceptions of whether it’s a good time to buy big-tickeft items fell nine points to 67. Perceptions of U.S. economic conditionas over the next five years remainede unchangedat 80.
"Moving forward, we do not expecf Florida consumer confidence to decline much more over the next coupleof months, barring some unforeseen change here in Florida or nationally," Chriss McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center at the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, said in a news However, McCarty cautioned the recovery is expectex to be long and uneven for some sectors of the "With the demise of longstanding financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers and manufacturing companies like Chryslet and GM, it is no longer business as usual," he said. The preliminary indez for June was conducted from430 responses.
It is benchmarkex to 1966, so a value of 100 representd the same level of confidence forthat