Written by Doug Short and Steven Hansen

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index improved after its sharp decline last month. The market expected this index to come in at 89.3 to 98.0 (consensus 93.0) versus the 92.6 reported.

This index still remains in territory associated with past recessions. Note that this data is considered preliminary, and the cutoff for these results was 16 December 2014.

Here is an excerpt from The Conference Board: