Oct. 28--Business at Lovell's Records & Tapes isn't exactly booming these days.

In fact, foot traffic at the Greenleaf Avenue store in Whittier has fallen off significantly in recent weeks, according to Vincent Garcia, one of the store's managers.

"It's been a pretty significant slowdown," he said. "Our business has been cut in half ... and we weren't doing that well in the first place."

Lovell's isn't alone.

On Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence fell in October, coming in well below analyst expectations.

The board's index of consumer confidence fell to 47.7 in October from 53.4 in September. Economists were expecting only a small decline, to 53.1. It takes a reading of 90 to indicate an economy on solid footing, 100 or more to indicate growth.

"The pulse isn't strong -- that's for sure," said Jackie Fernandez, a retail analyst with Deloitte & Touche. "There's still a lot of uncertainty out there. You can pick up the newspaper every day and read about layoffs. And our residential housing market isn't roaring back by any stretch."

In a separate reading, the Conference Board reported shoppers' sentiments about the state of the economy are the gloomiest in nearly three decades. Americans reported they plan to cut back on spending, in large part because they don't trust the job market.

All of this certainly does not bode well for the holiday shopping season.

Nearly half the 5,000 households surveyed by the board said jobs were hard to come by, and about one in four said they expected fewer available jobs in the coming months.

"We've gone down so far that it's kind of like when you fall into a deep hole and you're down 20 feet and you climb up by three feet," said Brian Bethune, an economist at IHS Global Insight. "You're better off than you were before, but you've still got a long way to go to get out."

And when it comes to a tough economy, perspective can be everything, according to Fernandez "You read that we're supposedly working our way out of the recession," she said. "But if you talk to people out in the street they sure don't feel that way."

Still, there have been some signs of recovery.

Corporate earnings are getting stronger, the stock market has regained much of its lost ground and figures due out Thursday are expected to show the recession officially ended in June or July.

And there was another indication Tuesday that the housing market is stabilizing. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller price index showed home prices in August climbed for the third consecutive month, helped by a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

-----

To see more of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sgvtribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

MHP,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.