Even in a period that included the festive holiday shopping season,consumers in Central New York and across New York state remained reluctant to spend their money in the final three months of last year. Overall consumer sentiment fell in the Syracuse, Utica–Rome, and Binghamton areas in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to the […]
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Even in a period that included the festive holiday shopping season,consumers in Central New York and across New York state remained reluctant to spend their money in the final three months of last year.
Overall consumer sentiment fell in the Syracuse, Utica–Rome, and Binghamton areas in the fourth quarter of 2013, according to the latest quarterly survey of nine metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) of the state that the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI) released Jan. 14.
The consumer-sentiment figure declined in all metro areas except Long Island, where quarterly sentiment inched up 0.7 points to an index level of 72, which ranked it second among the nine MSAs measured behind New York City at 75.4.
The index level in New York City fell 4.2 points, according to SRI.
Consumer sentiment in the Syracuse area decreased 2 points to 71.6, which ranked it third behind Long Island among the MSAs measured in the fourth quarter.
The sentiment figure in the Utica–Rome area slipped 0.3 points during the fourth quarter to an index level of 63.1, a sentiment figure that ranks eighth among the state’s nine MSAs in the quarter, according to SRI.
Consumer sentiment in the Binghamton area fell 4.5 points to 61.9, the lowest among the New York MSAs.
An MSA is a core, urbanized area of 50,000 or more people plus adjacent counties with strong social or economic ties, as measured by commuting patterns, according to SRI.
The year didn’t quite live up to the hopes that people had a year ago, says Donald Levy, SRI director.
“This quarter, especially, we saw a little bit of a slide. And we continued just to … hover at a mild level of pessimism, slight pessimism,” Levy says.
Consumers are just reluctant to spend their money, he adds.
When compared to the same quarter a year ago, the Syracuse overall sentiment figure of 71.6 is down 2.6 points from the 74.2 figure in 2012, according to the SRI data. At the same time, the Utica–Rome figure of 63.1 is down 5.1 points from the 68.2 registered a year ago, and the Binghamton number of 61.9 is down more than 10 points, according to the SRI data.
The intent of the consumer-confidence index is to measure people’s willingness to spend, as opposed to their ability to spend, SRI says. This data reports consumer confidence for the second quarter by MSA and should not be confused with SRI’s monthly New York index.
Buying plans
While consumer confidence is reported as an index number, the buying-plans portion of the survey reflects the percentage of respondents who plan specific expenditures in the next six months.
Of the 36 buying decisions possible across the nine MSAs, consumers boosted their buying plans in 25 product categories in the fourth quarter, and reduced buying plans in 19 categories. And, one category remained
buying plans are up in seven of nine regions, Levy notes.
“I think there’s been a pent-up demand that’s been building up. I think that the narrative in the press has been that real estate has solidified as an investment and that values have stabilized or begun to increase,” he adds.
And as it has done with its monthly consumer-sentiment surveys, SRI has replaced the computer category with consumer electronics in this survey.
In the Syracuse MSA, buying plans were up 4.2 points at 13.7 percent for cars and trucks, rose 4.9 points to 30 percent for consumer electronics, and increased 1 point to 3.7 percent for homes. Buying plans slipped 0.8 points to 14.6 percent for furniture, and fell 1.7 points to 16.1 percent for major home improvements.
In the Utica–Rome MSA, buying plans rose 3.9 points to 27.7 percent for consumer electronics, increased 2.6 points to 17.5 percent for major home improvements, inched up 1.7 points to 10.7 percent for cars and trucks, and rose 1.5 points to 4.6 percent for homes. Buying plans declined 0.1 points to 14.1 percent for furniture.
In the Binghamton MSA, buying plans rose 0.9 points to 12.9 percent for furniture. Buying plans fell 2.5 points to 6.5 percent for cars and trucks, declined 1.1 points to 3 percent for homes, dipped 0.7 points to 14.2 percent for major home improvements, and dropped 0.7 points to 23.9 percent for consumer electronics.
SRI conducted the quarterly consumer-sentiment survey by random telephone calls to more than 400 respondents over the age of 18 in all of the MSAs, except for New York City and Long Island, which are based on an average of SRI’s monthly consumer-confidence surveys.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
