Consumer Sentiment: PRELIMINARY Results for October 2025

The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment (ICS) - PRELIMINARY Results for October, 2025 was released today:

Predicted: 55.0

• Actual: 55.0

=========

• Change from Previous Month: -0.18% (-0.1 point)
  
  

• Change from 12 Months Previous: -21.99% (-15.5 points)

=========

• Final ICS Reading for September 2025: 55.1
  
  
• Final ICS Reading for October 2024: 70.5

=========

From Today's Report:

"...Consumer sentiment moved sideways this month. At 55 index points, sentiment is virtually unchanged from September. Improvements this month in current personal finances and year-ahead business conditions were offset by declines in expectations for future personal finances as well as current buying conditions for durables.

Overall, consumers perceive very few changes in the outlook for the economy from last month. Pocketbook issues like high prices and weakening job prospects remain at the forefront of consumers’ minds.

At this time, consumers do not expect meaningful improvement in these factors. Meanwhile, interviews reveal little evidence that the ongoing federal government shutdown has moved consumers’ views of the economy thus far.

Year-ahead inflation expectations ebbed from 4.7% last month to a still-high 4.6% this month. Long-run inflation expectations held steady at 3.7%. Inflation expectations for both time horizons are about midway between the readings seen a year ago and the highs seen this year in April and May in the wake of the initial announcements of major tariff changes..."

=========

CHART: Since Converging in May 2025,
 Sentiment Lifted for Consumers with Large Stock
Holdings and Fell for Non-Stockholders

 =========

The ICS is derived from the following five survey questions:

1. "We are interested in how people are getting along financially these days. Would you say that you (and your family living there) are better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago?"
   
   
2. "Now looking ahead, do you think that a year from now you (and your family living there) will be better off financially, or worse off, or just about the same as now?"
   
   
3. "Now turning to business conditions in the country as a whole, do you think that during the next twelve months we'll have good times financially, or bad times, or what?"
   
   
4. "Looking ahead, which would you say is more likely: that in the country as a whole we'll have continuous good times during the next five years or so, or that we will have periods of widespread unemployment or depression, or what?"
   
   
5. "About the big things people buy for their homes, such as furniture, a refrigerator, stove, television, and things like that. Generally speaking, do you think now is a good or bad time for people to buy major household items?"
   

=========

• Click here for more on how the ICS is calculated.

=========

The ICS uses a 1966 baseline, i.e. for 1966, the ICS = 100. So any number that is below the 1966 baseline of 100 means that the folks who were polled recently aren't as optimistic about the U.S. economy as those polled back in 1966.

The ICS is similar to the Consumer Confidence Index in that they both measure consumer attitudes and offer valuable insight into consumer spending.

=========

The "predicted" figure is what economists were expecting, while the "actual" is the true or real figure.

=========

• Click here to view the full University of Michigan report.

========= 

--> www.FedPrimeRate.com Privacy Policy <-- CLICK HERE to JUMP to the TOP of THIS PAGE --> SITEMAP <--