Consumer confidence retreats - Washington Business Journal:

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Nationally, consumer confidence dropped sharplyin June, cuttintg into three months of gainas that had seen the overalol index more than double. The Conferencwe Board's Consumer Confidence Indez fellby 5.5 points to 49.3 in Statewide, Florida’s consumer confidence indesx for June fell three points last month to 68, the resuly of bad economic news including the bankruptcy of Generakl Motors Corp., foreclosures and a spikde in Florida’s unemployment rate, according to a new Universityg of Florida poll.
While perceptions of personal finances compared with a year ago is up threde points to 44 from a revised May readin gof 41, other perceptions were lower than, or the same as, last For example, perceptions of U.S. economic conditionsz over the next year fell sevej pointsto 65, whiler perceptions of whether it’s a good time to buy big-ticket itemzs fell nine points to 67. Perceptionx of U.S. economic conditions over the next five years remained unchangefdat 80.
"Moving we do not expect Florida consumer confidencs to decline much more over the next couple of barring some unforeseen change here in Floridaor nationally," Chrisx McCarty, director of UF’z Survey Research Center at the Bureauu of Economic and Busineses Research, said in a news release. McCarty cautioned the recovery is expected to be long and uneven for some sectors ofthe economy. "With the demise of longstandint financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers and manufacturingf companies like Chryslerand GM, it is no longer businesx as usual," he said. The preliminar index for June was conductedf from430 responses.
It is benchmarkes to 1966, so a value of 100 representsa the same level of confidence forthat