"Consumer Confidence increased slightly in August, a result of improving short-term expectations. Consumers were moderately more upbeat about business, job and earning prospects."
- Lynn Franco director of economic indicators
A bunch of upbeat economic data from the world's largest economy was published on Tuesday, supporting the case of September's tapering. Consumer morale rose more than expected in August, amid expectations of a strong growth figures and hopes the economy will continue gaining steam. The Consumer Confidence Index compiled by the Conference Board climbed to 81.5 this month, up from 80.3 points reported in the previous month. Analysts, however, expected a reading of 79.6. The assessment of current conditions, however, declined moderately. Those stating business conditions are appropriate decreased to 18.4%, compared with 20.8%, while the number of people considering current conditions as "bad" remained unchanged at 24.8%. On contrast, the number of people, who expect business conditions to worsen, declined slightly to 11.1% from the previous month's 11.3%.
Separately, the S&P/Case Shiller said that the U.S. single-family home price advanced 0.9% in June, though the pace of gains decelerated moderately from a month ago. In May, prices ticked up 1%. On a non-adjusted basis, prices soared 2.2%. Figures also showed that property values increased in all 20 cities, led by a 24.9% surge in Las Vegas, while San Francisco recorded a 24.5% gain. In the meantime, with interest rates reaching almost 4.6%, potential buyers may be discouraged and sharp rises can be dampened.
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