Confidence rises as optimism about future improves

American consumers felt more confident in August as their outlook for the future improved.

The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 103.3 in August from 101.9 in July.

The index measures both Americans’ assessment of current economic conditions and their outlook for the next six months.

The measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for income, business and the job market rose to 82.5. July’s figure was revised up to 81.1 from its initial reading of 78.2, ending a five-month stretch below 80. A reading under 80 can signal a potential recession in the near future.

Consumers’ view of current conditions rose to 134.4 in August from 133.1 last month.

Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of U.S. economic activity and is closely watched by economists for signs how the American consumer is feeling.

Though the report’s topline numbers all improved slightly from July, consumers continued to have mixed feelings about the economy.

“Consumers’ assessments of the current labor situation, while still positive, continued to weaken, and assessments of the labor market going forward were more pessimistic,” said Dana Peterson, the Conference Board’s chief economist.

Navy contractor to pay $24M to settle fraud probe

A U.S. Navy shipbuilder agreed to pay $24 million and plead guilty to federal charges linked to a yearslong fraud that involved inflating profits and misleading investors and auditors.

Austal USA LLC, an Alabama-based company that builds vessels for the Navy and Coast Guard, overstated the profitability of its operations to prop up the share price of its Australian parent company, Austal Ltd., the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement Tuesday.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a parallel lawsuit, Austal and its parent company artificially reduced the estimated costs of finishing projects for the U.S. Navy by tens of millions of dollars, despite knowing costs were increasing. When the higher costs were eventually disclosed, the company was forced to write down more than $100 million.

Three former Austal USA executives were charged with fraud in 2023 and are awaiting trial.

Riggio, man behind Barnes & Noble empire, dies

Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83.

Riggio died Tuesday a “following a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s disease,” according to a statement issued by his family. He had stepped down as chairman in 2019 after Barnes & Noble was sold to the hedge fund Elliott Advisors.

His near-half century reign at Barnes & Noble began in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million loan to purchase the company’s name and its flagship store on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He acquired hundreds of new stores over the next 20 years and, in the 1990s, launched what became a nationwide empire of “superstores” that combined a chain’s discount prices and massive capacity with the cozy appeal of couches, reading chairs and cafés.

By the end of the 1990s, an estimated one of every eight books sold in the U.S. was purchased through the chain, where front table displays were so valuable that publishers paid thousands of dollars to have their books included.

Compiled from Associated Press and Bloomberg reports.