Things can only get better …..

We asked a thousand people and most of them said ...... there is trouble ahead!  Consumer confidence took a further nose-dive last month according to fresh data from the Nationwide Building Society. The main reason was another steep decline in the percentage of people reported as saying that the UK economy is in good shape. This is just one survey among many, and its limited longevity doesn’t give it much of a record in anticipating turning points in the economic cycle. But if the housing market presages a wider economic downturn, it might well be one of the survey indicators to watch carefully because the shift in sentiment does not appear to have benign causes. Sixty per cent of those surveyed say that now is a bad time to make a major purchase such as a house or a new car – almost twice the number compared to two years ago.

Good University Guide Rankings for Economics

There is a plethora of university guides out there and no one guide has a monopoly on gauging accurately the relative merits of one university against another and one department against another. The Independent today publishes a survey based on the new version of the Good University Guide. Here are the rankings for Economics - at least they had the good sense to put Cambridge first! It brings back so many memories of three years at the Sidgewick site!

Chart of the Day: Nationwide Consumer Confidence Index

First published in May 2004, the Nationwide Building Society’s consumer confidence index is a recent addition to the phalanx of indices seeking to track changes in household sentiment and give us a lead indicator of where the economic cycle might be heading. 1,000 adults are interviewed each month, in a survey that is the closest we get in the UK to the Conference Board surveys published in the United States,The Index is based on responses to 5 questions included in the survey:

People’s appraisal of current economic conditions
People’s expectations regarding economic conditions six months hence
People’s appraisal of the current employment conditions
People’s expectations regarding employment conditions six months hence
People’s expectations regarding their total family income six months hence

The latest figures were released today and show the weakest confidence since the survey was launched, evidence perhaps that the gloomier economic headlines dominating the papers and TV news coverage in recent days and weeks is starting to show through. Looking a little at the detail within the survey, it seems that people’s expectations for the economy in six months time are improving slightly, but on balance those surveyed still expect house prices to rise during 2008. Perhaps the news on property prices from the last few days will change this perception in the May survey?