Fed Sparks Confidence -- Consumers Feel Better About the Economy

    COLUMBUS, Ohio--April 25, 2001--Alan Greenspan's lowering of interest rates has started to revive consumer confidence according to just released findings from BIGresearch surveys before and after the announced rate cuts.
    Consumers say that their feelings about the chance for a strong economy in 2001 are higher than prior to the Fed's dropping interest rates by 1/2% on April 18, 2001.
    In a study conducted by BIGresearch between April 4-13, 2001, 3400 consumers exhibited the following response to a question on confidence in the economy:

    "Which of the following best describes your feelings about
    chances for a strong economy in 2001?"
    Very confident 5.0%
    Confident 39.1%
    Little confidence 47.0%
    No confidence 8.9%

    After the April 18th announcement, the responses from consumers
    surveyed from April 20-23, was:
    Very confident 5.5%
    Confident 47.2%
    Little confidence 39.3%
    No confidence 8.0%

    There was an overall increase in confident/very confident feelings for a strong economy to 52.7% post Fed announcement compared to 44.1% pre announcement -- a solid 8.6% increase in confidence. However, consumer confidence is still not where it was when BIGresearch asked the same question during the week of January 17-23. At that time BIGresearch reported that consumer confidence was at a level of 59.9% (confident/very confident).
    "Consumer confidence certainly is a real measure of trust and hope in our leaders. But consumer confidence is also highly influenced by TV media exposure," said Joe Pilotta, Ph.D., Vice President of BIGresearch. "It will be important to see if the level of confidence will continue to increase over the next several weeks. BIGresearch will continue tracking consumer confidence, and analyze the determinants of confidence," said Pilotta.

    About BIGresearch:
    BIGresearch gathers very large samples from the world's largest online community of over 51 million e-mail newsletter subscribers and employs new computer intensive statistical methods to extract previously unknown, comprehensible and actionable information for crucial business or policy decision-making. www.bigresearch.com.

    Complimentary top line findings are available at http://www.formsite.com/prosper/info. The data is available for purchase from BIGresearch, which includes the ability to cross tab respondents by age, sex, zip code, geographic regions, and all other data points.