Consumer Comfort Bounces Back in Time for Holiday Shopping

Americans’ confidence is rebounding -- just in time for holiday shopping and reversing most of a recent slide that threatened to sour the season for U.S. retailers.

Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort Index rose to 61.7 from 60.5 in the week ended Dec. 1, according to a report issued Thursday.

Among the gauge’s three components, views of personal finances posted the biggest weekly advance since the end of August, recovering most of a drop that took root in mid-October. Sentiment about the state of the economy and whether it’s a good time to buy also climbed.

Key Insights

• The improvement in comfort reflects steady hiring, wage gains and near-record stock prices that are allowing consumers to look beyond economic worries such as the trade war with China and a slowdown.
• The comfort index has risen three straight weeks and erased most of a steep 5.4-point drop over the preceding three weeks.
• Sentiment mirrors positive reports coming from the nation’s retailers. Brick-and-mortar store sales on Black Friday were up mid-single-digits, according to Fiserv’s First Data Insights, while shoppers blew out Cyber Monday by spending almost 20% more than last year.
• Overall sentiment among Democrats fell steeply in mid-November to its lowest level since February but has since recovered about half its lost ground.
• Confidence among African Americans has been particularly volatile lately, rising to a level of 53.9 in the week ended Dec. 1 from a 2019 low reading of 33.9 just three weeks earlier. Confidence among whites has changed only slightly in that period.
• Among major regions, Americans in the West are the most confident, while people in the Northeast are least upbeat.