C-Meter: October 2003

While jobs continued to be lost during the jobless recovery, other positive economic news helped to slightly boost this month’s Confidence Meter survey, conducted from August 21 through September 4. The period saw advances in both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Exchange. Consumer confidence rose too, as measured by the Conference Board, from 81.3 points in August, up from 77.0 a month earlier. No surprise then to see that our C-Meter score for the overall economy rose to 6.1, up from 5.9 in September. Similarly, the score for our respondents’ respective industries rose one-tenth of a point to 6.0, while the score for their own companies rose a tenth as well to 6.5.