Consumer Confidence
According to Wikipedia, consumer confidence is the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy and their personal financial situation. How confident people feel about stability of their incomes determines their spending activity and therefore serves as one of the key indicators for the overall shape of the economy. In essence, if consumer confidence is higher, consumers are making more purchases, boosting the economic expansion. On the other hand, if confidence is lower, consumers tend to save more than they spend, prompting the contraction of the economy. A month-to-month diminishing trend in consumer confidence suggests that in the current state of the economy most consumers have a negative outlook on their ability to find and retain good jobs.
