Investor's Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said their IBD/TIPP economic optimism index fell to 42.5 from February's 44.5. A reading below 50 indicates pessimism.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer confidence fell in March, turning its most pessimistic in nearly two and a half years on the back of high fuel prices and a wave of grim economic data, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
Investor's Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence said their IBD/TIPP economic optimism index fell to 42.5 from February's 44.5. A reading below 50 indicates pessimism.
March's result was the lowest since a reading of 42.0 in October 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and was the 12th straight month the index has been in pessimistic territory.
"Consumer confidence fell again this month amid persistently high fuel prices, which are reverberating around the economy," Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP, a unit of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, IBD's polling partner, said in a statement accompanying the release.
!ADVERTISEMENT!The reading was the third-lowest in the index's 86-month history. It was 4.4 points below the prior 12-month average and 10 points below the index's historical average, IBD/TIPP said.
The six-month economic outlook fell to 32.8 from 35.1. The personal financial outlook, a measure of how U.S. consumers feel about their own finances in the next six months fell to 54.7 from 57.7.
Confidence in Federal economic policies, a proprietary IBD/TIPP measure of views on how government economic policies are working, fell to 39.9 from 40.6.
"Consumers have been hit by a spate of bad news, including a sliding dollar, declining employment and a credit and housing crunch," Terry Jones, associate editor of Investor's Business Daily, was also quoted as saying.
"The negativity of an ongoing presidential campaign hasn't helped. Americans will be eagerly awaiting a boost to their finances from Fed rate cuts and the $160 billion stimulus package."
The U.S. Federal Reserve said earlier on Tuesday that with pressure mounting again in financial markets, it was expanding its measures aimed at shoring up deteriorating credit conditions.
(Reporting by Burton Frierson; Editing by James Dalgleish)
