The Microsoft-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index powered by HPS (“ESI”) is a “living” index that measures U.S. adults’ expectations for the economy going forward, as well as their feelings about current conditions for major purchases. The primary goal of the Index is to accurately measure movements in overall national economic sentiment and to provide a more sophisticated alternative to existing economic sentiment indices. Unlike other prominent indices that release consumer sentiment estimates infrequently, the Microsoft-CivicScience Index is updated in real-time as responses are collected continuously every hour, every day. Large-scale cross-tabulation of survey responses and consumer attributes enable more granular analyses than are currently possible through prevailing measures.

Excerpt From the Latest Reading: 

Consumer confidence slowly ticked up again over the past two weeks, according to the Microsoft News-CivicScience Economic Sentiment Index (ESI), powered by Hamilton Place Strategies. Following the last reading’s marginal increase of 0.3 points, the ESI moved up by 0.5 points during this reading to 50.5.

 

Five key indicators
Four of the ESI’s five indicators increased over the past two weeks. Consumer confidence in the labor market experienced the largest improvement, increasing by 1.4 points to 42.6. Sentiment toward personal finances and the housing market increased 1.2 and 0.6 points respectively following both indicators’ decline during the last reading period. Confidence in the broader U.S. economy increased slightly by 0.1 points to 44.4, while confidence in making major purchases was the sole indicator to decline, falling by 1.2 points.
Read the full report here.