Consumer confidence falls short of March estimates

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index reading for March missed analyst expectations, coming in at 104.7, lower than the Street's forecast of 107. Yahoo Finance's Seana Smith and Madison Mills break down the numbers and analyze how the broader market (^DJI, ^IXIC, ^GSPC, ^RUT) is digesting this data.

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Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index for March coming in just below the Street's expectations, coming in at 104.7. The estimate was for 107. So a bit of a dip in terms of what the Street was looking for. We know persistent inflation obviously one of the headwinds one of the challenges that consumers are grappling with at this point. We have seen sticky inflation really remain a consistent headwind for consumers over the last several months. One of the things that has been holding consumer confidence back just a bit so U.S. March Consumer Confidence coming in slightly below what the Street had been looking for at 104.7. Maddie.

MADISON MILLS: Well, it's looking like we're still seeing some green on your screen when it comes to the S&P and the NASDAQ. The Dow just dipping below. The Red Bull looking a little bit flat here. That could be due to these consumer confidence numbers coming in a little bit below the Street's expectation, particularly because the Street was actually expecting a beat here coming into this print. And that again follows some downside surprises that you mentioned, Seana, as we look at the consumer confidence numbers.

But having said that, I do want to take a quick look at the broader market here. Interesting to even see that Apple is turning around into the green after being down in the red this morning following reports that iPhone sales out of China declined by 33%. That could be an indication to me that we're seeing some broader bullishness in today's trade in a more macro sense, given the idiosyncratic problems with that particular stock.

And it's looking like the Mag Seven in general, other than Amazon, of course, doing pretty well in the pre-market trade. Of course, the darling NVIDIA up 5/10 of a percent there. I want to just see if I can grab a quick look at the broader market here. Yeah, we've got the NASDAQ up 5/10 of a percent. The S&P close to 3/10 of a percent. And we're still seeing the Russell 2000 up 6/10 of a percent today. So seeing some of that broadening as well in terms of the gains. Not seen a lot of downward surprise following that consumer confidence print.