By coinnews 
00:00 Speaker A
I do want to talk about consumer confidence, break this data for you. Consumer confidence falling for the fifth straight month in April to 86. Economists were expecting 88 here. Interesting to see the present situation number coming in at 133.5. That’s just a touch below the prior number. Expectations coming in at 54.4, the previous number was 65.2. So a significant move to the downside on those expectations. Joining us in studio to break it down. We’ve got Yelena Shulyatyeva. She is the Conference Board’s senior US economist. Yelena, great to speak with you here. What is your headline takeaway from this report?
00:55 Yelena Shulyatyeva
Well, expectations are at a 13 year low. And if you look at what consumers are telling us about jobs availability, they expect that uh to be really, really poor. So that index is actually uh at its highest level uh since the Great Recession. The index that tells us that consumers expect fewer jobs available. So this is telling us this is getting to the consumer. They were surprised by the tariffs. Remember this survey was taken right uh at the um, you know, at the high peak of uncertainty during the liberation day. That is included in the sample. So I think consumers were very much surprised by uh the severity of those tariffs. And they are actually expecting to affect their finances and their jobs.
02:24 Speaker A
So, I I want to pull out a jarring stat from this print that I know you’ll be aware of. The share of consumers expecting fewer jobs in the next six months, 32.1%. Nearly as high as in April 2009 in the middle of the Great Recession.
02:45 Yelena Shulyatyeva
Totally. So that is a scarring thing. And they are very much concerned about their personal finances as well. So, uh I think the JOLTS data that you cited earlier, that is an interesting one as well because the job openings rate fell to 4.3%. 4.5% is kind of the borderline between, you know, uh significant increases in the unemployment rate and small increases in the unemployment rate. When it falls below 4.5%, this is significant. We should probably expect uh much more significant increases in the unemployment rate.
03:49 Speaker A
And yet you have stocks rallying at the moment. To what extent do you think that the narrative about consumer resilience over the last four years is perhaps being taken for granted right now by consumers? Do you think or or by investors? Do you think that that consumer resilience is going to continue despite the soft data?
04:13 Yelena Shulyatyeva
I think, yeah, exactly. The soft data and the hard data. When the hard data starts falling, that’s when we’re probably going to see something.