I'm Taylor Riggs and this is the Fox Business Rundown.

Friday, October 18th, 2024,

the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdac all trying to finish up for the sixth week in a row, regularly

hitting record highs.

But at the same time, consumer confidence has been falling lately as most Americans say they now feel worse off than they were four years ago

Can we have it both ways? So if inflation adjusts people's earnings,

I think people really have the budget balloons

where they look at the money that they're bringing in,

that's gone up and that's great,

but what they have to spend with they're pushing out the door

That's also gone up and unfortunately faster

Something of a split-screen moment in the US economy the consumer confidence index its steepest drop last month, hitting its biggest decline since August 2021.

Perhaps the Fed has been succeeding in their inflation battle, but Americans may still be feeling their wallets pin. their according to the Department of Labor. But at the same time we've seen major stock

indices finish up now six weeks in a row. Investors on Wall Street are

certainly enjoying this streak where we've now seen sectors and stocks pushing the markets

to records on a steady basis. Nearly all the big banks earnings report suggests

that consumers are still spending and yes they're still borrowing on credit cards but how

they are feeling may be a different story. A recent Gallup poll on the economy showed that

52% of Americans say they and their family are worse off today than

they were four years ago. How do we square these two snapshots of our economy?

All right I want to kick it off with you.

You know, I spoke to the Amex CEO this morning, Stephen Squarey, and they continue to talk about

...