Consumer Confidence at 5-Year High

The Conference Board reported that consumer confidence rose to its highest level in over five years as rising home price, rising stock prices, and an improving labor market have brightened the American mood.

The overall index jumped 7.2 points, from an upwardly revised 69.0 in April to 76.2 in May, the best reading since February 2008, just months before the financial crisis.

The expectations component jumped 8.1 points to a recovery high of 82.4 while the current conditions index improved 6 points to 66.7. The share of respondents saying jobs are “hard to get” fell from 36.9 percent in April to 36.1 percent in May and those saying jobs are “plentiful” rose from 9.7 percent to 10.8 percent.

In a separate report from Standard & Poor’s released earlier today, the Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes jumped 1.4 percent in March and are now up more than 10 percent on a year-over-year basis for the first time since early-2006.

The national home price index is still below the levels seen in 2009 and 2010 when tax credits pushed prices higher and they remain more than 25 percent below the highs of seven years ago, but the former may change as soon as next month.