Consumer confidence did come in nearly a point higher than expected, at 100.3 in July, but the level remains subdued if not depressed with June revised 2.6 points lower to 97.8.

The assessment of July's jobs market is less favorable than June: jobs are described as hard to get by 16.0 percent of the sample, which is up 0.3 percentage points, while jobs plentiful are down 1.4 points to 34.1 percent. These results will confirm expectations for further moderation in the July employment report which will be posted on Friday.

On the plus side, the assessment of the jobs market six months from now is actually higher: more jobs up 1.4 points to 14.5 percent, fewer jobs down 1.6 points to 16.7 percent. Expectations for future income are mixed with fewer seeing an increase (15.6 vs 16.2 percent) but fewer also seeing a decrease (11.6 vs 12.3 percent).

Future buying plans, however, weakened across the board especially for homes, to a noticeably low 4.2 percent of the sample expecting to buy a house in the next six months versus 5.1 percent in June. High home prices along with still high mortgage rates are at play.

Year-ahead rate expectations (of note ahead of Wednesday's FOMC meeting) are declining with fewer seeing higher rates and more seeing lower rates. The bulls and bears split on the stock market is little changed with the former ahead of the latter by more than two to one, 49.1 vs 23.5 percent.

Though July's readings on the whole are generally more favorable than June, the gist of this report is flat at best. July's 100.3 reading is more than 10 points lower than it was in January this year (110.9) and is 25 points lower than July 2021 (125.1). Nevertheless, July's score beat Econoday's consensus and helps lift the Relative Performance Index that now stands at 17 overall to indicate US data, on net, are outperforming forecaster estimates.

The consumer confidence index is expected to fall back again, to a consensus 99.5 versus 100.4 in June which compared with expectations for 100.0 and May's 101.3.

The Conference Board's confidence report surveys consumers on their assessments of the labor market, business activity, and their own financial conditions. The survey is conducted by Toluna, an online community platform. (Conference Board and Toluna)

The pattern in consumer attitudes and spending is often the foremost influence on stock and bond markets. For stocks, strong economic growth translates to healthy corporate profits and higher stock prices. For bonds, the focus is whether economic growth goes overboard and leads to inflation. Ideally, the economy walks that fine line between strong growth and excessive (inflationary) growth.

This balance was achieved through much of the nineties and, in large part because of this, investors in the stock and bond markets enjoyed huge gains. It was during the late nineties that the consumer confidence index hit its historic peak, reaching levels that were never matched during the subsequent 2001 to 2007 expansion nor during the long expansion following the Great Recession.

Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, so the markets are always dying to know what consumers are up to and how they might behave in the near future. The more confident consumers are about the economy and their own personal finances, the more likely they are to spend. With this in mind, it's easy to see how this index of consumer attitudes gives insight to the direction of the economy. Just note that changes in consumer confidence and retail sales don't move in tandem month by month.