Survey portrays a lift in U.S. consumer confidence

The falling energy costs helped raise the consumer confidence much higher than expected by analysts, in September. The Conference Board said its index of consumer sentiment climbed up from an upwardly-revised 100.2 in August to 104.5, in September. Analysts had expected the index to rise to 103.

The consumer sentiments were dragged down by employment worries in August which made the index take a big plunge after it reached its highest at 107 in July. A representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households is the base of the Consumer Confidence Survey.

The Present Situation Index of the private research group increased to 127.7 from 123.9. It measures how shoppers feel now about economic conditions. Expectations Index, which measures consumers' outlook over the next six months, went up to 89.0 from 84.4 last month.

Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said "A more favorable assessment of current conditions coupled with a less pessimistic short-term outlook boosted consumer confidence this month. However, even though consumers' concerns have eased, there is little to suggest a significant change in economic activity as we enter the final quarter of 2006."

Consumers’ outlook for the labor market improved moderately in September, according to the Conference Board. As reported by the survey, consumers who were anticipating more jobs to become available in the coming months rose to 14.4 percent from 14.2 percent in August and the ones who said jobs were plentiful increased from 24.5 percent to 25.9 percent in September.

The proportion of consumers that expected their incomes to increase in the months ahead rose to 19.7 percent from 17.9 percent.