Worries about how the Trump administration’s trade policies will impact the U.S. economy prompted a dip in consumer confidence this month, although sentiment remained at a historically high level.
The University of Michigan on Friday said the preliminary result of its consumer-sentiment index was 97.8 in April, down from a 14-year high of 101.4 in March. The preliminary April reading fell short of the 100.0 that economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected.
The reading “disappointed relative to expectations, but some softening in sentiment is not too shocking given the weakening in equity markets over the past few months as well as what seems to be a string of negative headlines in the news,” JPMorgan Chase economist Daniel Silver said in a note to clients.
The S&P 500 has fallen roughly 2.7% since President Donald Trump signed steel and aluminum tariffs on March 8.
The consumer sentiment index rose 0.8% in April from a year earlier. A final reading for the month will be released April 27.
“The small decline was widely shared by all age and income subgroups and across all regions of the country,” said Richard Curtin, the survey’s chief economist. He said that an expected rise in interest rates also slightly slowed the anticipated pace of economic growth.
The index of current economic conditions tumbled more than 5% on the month to 115.0. According to Ian Shepherdson, chief economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, “the current conditions index spiked in March, presumably as people saw the tax cuts coming through, so a correction in April was always a decent bet.”
Friday’s report showed households’ expectations about inflation ticked slightly lower in April.
Consumers this month expected a 2.7% rise in inflation over the next year, down slightly from 2.8% in March. They expected an 2.4% rise in inflation over the next five years, down from 2.5% in the prior three months.
Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com