Consumer Confidence Snaps Back

Back in February, the consumer confidence number, you may remember, took a sudden plunge, after three straight months of improvement. March's figure, released on Tuesday, provided a strong bounceback: After dropping in February to 46.4, the lowest figure since last April, the consumer confidence number came in at 52 in March, above even the analysts' estimate of 50.

The hard numbers agree with that assessment. Retail growth came in at a 3.7 percent increase in February, and the International Council of Shopping Centers expects a March number in the area of 3.5 percent growth. Housing prices are also up a tick in the most recent figures.

So what happened to consumer confidence in February? It's possible it was just a statistical blip. The Conference Board calculates its consumer confidence number by surveying 5000 households chosen at random. While that's enough to provide a statistically significant sample, there's always a small chance that enough wayward households got into the February sample to skew the numbers a bit. Given that the February retail numbers - the ones most affected by consumer confidence - didn't show any weakness at all, that seems a likely occurrence.