Thomson Reuters IPSOS PCSI

The Thomson Reuters/Ipsos US Primary Consumer Sentiment Index (PCSI) is a monthly gauge of consumer attitudes. Ipsos Public Affairs conducts and calculates it on the Global Advisor platform, exclusively distributed by Thomson Reuters, later Refinitiv and LSEG. Running monthly since March 2010, it covers 1,000+ US adults aged 18-74 from an online panel weighted to Census shares. The credibility interval is near +/-3.5 points.

US records link back to 2002 through the monthly telephone RBC CASH Index of January 2002 to February 2011. It records attitudes, not retail sales, employment counts, inflation or GDP. It differs from the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers and the Conference Board confidence gauge.

Fieldwork spans about two weeks from the end of the prior month into the opening days of the release month. Results arrive monthly around or after mid-month, each round using only its survey data with no revision schedule.

Each release shows the four sub-indices with 12-month and multi-year trend charts. It adds a Trip Report, regional averages and three tracked questions republished in the Economic Pulse of the World.

Moves read as point shifts against the prior release and history. A move of +/-2.0 points is significant for a country, and +/-0.5 for the global index. There is no published buy/sell or optimism threshold: PCSI is a leading indicator for consumption.

The headline blends four weighted sub-indices that can move in different directions.

• Current Conditions: captures how people rate current finances and the local economy today.
• Expectations: captures the 6-month outlook for personal finances, the local economy and employment.
• Investment: captures comfort with major and other household purchases plus confidence in saving and investing for retirement or education.
• Jobs: covers job security for self, family and acquaintances, plus job loss over the past six months and expected over the next six.

The March 14, 2018 release held the headline at 63.1, flat with February 2018, while components moved in opposite directions. Expectations fell 2.0 points to 67.1 from 69.1. Jobs rose 0.2 to 72.0, Investment rose 0.3 to 57.8 and Current Conditions rose 0.6 to 56.6. The flat headline hid a 2-point expectations drop offset by small gains elsewhere, so readers should check all four sub-indices.

1. Baseline (100 in January 2010): a starting benchmark, not an optimism line.
2. Top Box % and Bottom Box %: answers to each question collapse into the most positive and most negative shares.
3. Reward and Penalty: Shapely Value Analysis assigns each question a Reward value and a Penalty value, both unpublished.
4. Magnitude and Importance: Magnitude is Reward minus Penalty, and Importance is that Magnitude over total Magnitude across questions. Importance shares sum to 1.
5. Question value: each question scores Importance times (Top weight times Top Box % minus Bottom weight times Bottom Box %). Top weight equals Reward divided by Magnitude, and Bottom weight equals Penalty divided by Magnitude.
6. Aggregation: the headline sums question values through the four weighted sub-indices, whose weights stay unpublished. There were 11 questions in 2015-2018 documents and 10 since 2020, with the full list available on request.
7. Sample weighting: each national sample is weighted to Census shares, while global averages give each country equal weight. No seasonal adjustment is described.
8. Illustrative mini-index: take two hypothetical questions with Rewards 0.8 and 0.6 and Penalties 0.3 and 0.4. Magnitudes are 0.5 and 0.2, so Importance shares are near 0.714 and 0.286. With Top shares 40 and 35 and Bottom shares 25 and 30, the two values come out near 35.0 and 12.9. They sum near 47.9 on an illustrative scale.