In the United States, home sales and the manufacturing index are down, but consumer confidence is growing. Sales of new homes fell by 3,3% in February to 440 units, doing worse than the consensus of the analyzes which expected a limited decline to 445 units. The Commerce Department also revised its January figure downwards to 455 from 468. In the month, the ratio between inventories and sales stood at 5,2 months at current sales rates.
A minus also for the Richmond Fed index which measures manufacturing activity: -7% was recorded in March. In February, the same index stood at -6 points.
On the other hand, the data on US consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board was clearly above expectations. In March there was a leap to 82,3 points from 78,3 the previous month, when analysts were expecting a much more modest rise of a few tenths to 78,6. “Consumer confidence improved in March thanks to the recovery of short-term expectations – commented the chief economist of the Conference Board, Lynn Franco – However, while on the one hand consumers are more optimistic about the outlook for the economy, they are less about income growth”.
