U.S. Consumer Sentiment Falls More Than Forecast Amid Rising Fuel Prices

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Consumer sentiment in the U.S. dropped more than forecast in March, damped by higher gasoline costs and the effects of Japan’s natural disaster.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment decreased to 67.5, the lowest level since November 2009, from 77.5 in February, the group said today. The median forecast of 67 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a reading of 68.

Gasoline prices hovering near the highest levels since October 2008 are straining the finances of American households, whose spending makes up about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy. While unemployment has fallen for three months, Japan’s earthquake crisis led to a plunge in stock values, at one point wiping out all of 2011’s gains.

“Consumers are concerned about the rise in gasoline and food prices,” said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies & Co. in New York who correctly forecast the drop. “People who are now shelling more money out of their pockets every time they fill the gas tank have a whole lot less left over for anything else they want to spend money on.”



Read more: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=azHXidyrucj8&pos=2

[No Elephants]

1. J*O*B*S*

[LiberalLoner]

2. K&R n/t

[RedCloud]

3. Fuel Prices rising amid glut of surplus.