Consumer Sentiment

Who: University of Michigan

When: Second Friday of the month (preliminary) and on the fourth Friday of the month (final).

What: The Michigan index has two main sub-indexes - consumers' sentiments for current conditions and consumers' expectations for future economic growth. Consumers' current sentiment of the economy is 40% of the reading and their future expectations make up the remaining 60%.

Why: Consumer sentiment is used to gain insight into possible future consumer spending. It is almost identical to consumer confidence but it has two readings per month, preliminary and final readings. The consumer expectations portion is used for the leading economic indicators index.