Following the sharp fall in the US consumer confidence index during August, this
index remained low in September and nearly didnt change. According to the recent
U.S. consumer confidence survey, the consumer confidence index remained low in
September and nearly unchanged compared with Augusts index. The index reached in
September to 45.2 (1985=100) a slight increase from 45.4 in August. American
consumers short term outlook in U.S. business conditions has slightly improved
according to the report. On the other hand, the consumers assessment of current
day conditions has weakened further in September. Please note that this report
was based on a survey conducted up to September 15th. During that time, the
market conditions remained nearly unchanged and the real turbulence in the
financial markets occurred in the past week as the US stock markets, and major
commodities prices including crude oil prices and gold prices sharply declined.
This consumer confidence index might be among the factors to affect the recent
rally in natural gas prices in the past couple of days: according to a paper
prepared by Roache et. al (2008) on the effects of news on commodities prices
including natural gas prices, there was a positive significant coefficient for
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