Quikrete Industry Dashboard: Confidence unshaken

The latest version of the Quikrete Industry Dashboard shows big movement on the Stock Roundup, where all 10 companies tracked fell into negative territory for the latest month.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Confidence Index for February came in at 130.7, slightly higher than January’s 130.4. The index was released on the last Tuesday of the month, after stocks began to decline but before several additional days of serious damage to share prices.

From the Conference Board comes this optimistic analysis from Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators: “Despite the decline in the Present Situation Index, consumers continue to view current conditions quite favorably. Consumers’ short-term expectations improved, and when coupled with solid employment growth, should be enough to continue to support spending and economic growth in the near term.”

However, a different measure of consumers’ assessment of current conditions was less favorable in February. Those claiming business conditions are “good” declined from 40.0% to 38.6%, while those claiming business conditions are “bad” increased, from 10.4% to 11.9%.

The February CCI release contained no mention of the coronavirus.