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2025-07-29 22:03:50
Did US Consumer Confidence "Dead Cat Bounce"? July Data Hid Three Deadly Traps. ⑴ On the evening of July 29th (Beijing time), the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index edged up 2 points to 97.2, but the expectations index remained below the recession warning line of 80 for six consecutive months, exposing a "false prosperity" in the economy. ⑵ A strange split: The current situation index fell 1.5 points to 131.5, the lowest employment assessment since March 2021. 18.9% of consumers believe "jobs are hard to find," a 4.4 percentage point increase from January. ⑶ The 35+ demographic drove all the gains, with households with annual incomes below $15,000 the only area with a "confidence collapse," reflecting a weakening of underlying economic momentum. ⑷ Inflation expectations remained high at 5.8%. Despite declining from their April peak, consumer concerns about rising prices have increased, with the percentage of respondents mentioning inflation reaching a three-month high. ⑸ The lingering effects of Trump's tariff rhetoric, with 32% of unintentional comments directly pointing to tariffs driving up prices, making policy uncertainty the biggest stumbling block to consumer recovery. ⑹ Danger signal: Plans for home purchases and car purchases have both declined, willingness to spend on dining and travel has plummeted, service consumption has shrunk for two consecutive months, and the economic engine is stalling. ⑺ Wall Street illusion: 47.9% of consumers are bullish on the stock market, a surge of 10.3 percentage points from April, forming an absurd deviation from the weak fundamentals. ⑻ Fatal misjudgment of interest rate expectations: 53% believe that interest rates will continue to rise, but the proportion of those betting on a surge in mortgage/car loan rates far exceeds that of other categories, and the debt bomb is counting down. ⑼ This seemingly stable report hides three time bombs - deteriorating employment assessments, misaligned interest rate expectations, and shrinking service consumption. Any outbreak of any of these is enough to puncture the illusion of a "soft landing."
