00:00Well, I don't think anybody's surprised that people are not happy with the way the economy is going now.
00:04The gasoline prices went up 21.2 percent in the month of March.
00:09So the headline Michigan number comes in at 47.6.
00:14That is, it appears, the lowest perhaps that we've seen since February of 1978.
00:21That's the number I'm getting, and I'm not positive, but you can double check that with Joanne Hsu in just
00:27a few moments.
00:28Current conditions, as you mentioned, 50.1.
00:30That's down from 55.8.
00:33Expectations, 46.1, down from 51.7.
00:37Another big drop there.
00:39The one-year inflation number, 4.8 percent.
00:42It was 3.8 percent for the month of February.
00:47So a significant rise as people internalized gasoline prices.
00:52And the five- to ten-year is up, not changed a lot, 3.4 percent from 3.2 percent.
00:58But that's not really the issue with the Americans right now.
01:02It's the immediacy of gasoline prices.
01:04Factory orders come in flat, no change over the month.
01:08And so we're not expecting any kind of major impact then on the overall February numbers for GDP.
01:18But Michigan, certainly a disappointment.
01:21Yeah, and I do want to ask this to Joanne Hsu because, Mike, lower than sentiment during COVID when we
01:28were literally all locked down and couldn't leave our homes?
01:32Are we sort of factoring in, you know, be it the Fed or the economists among us, just what that
01:37type of sentiment would likely do to the consumer and consumer behavior?
01:42Well, that's a big question.
01:44Are people going to be cutting back?
01:46We saw that they have been in some of the revised numbers.
01:49The GDP numbers for the fourth quarter showed consumer spending had gone down.
01:54And the spending numbers we got from the February PCE report were not particularly great.
02:01So are Americans pulling back?
02:03It seems that they likely are.
02:06And we know that gasoline prices take a bite out of what you spend on other things.
02:11So it's very possible that the April numbers we get are going to be kind of ugly.
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