Consumer Confidence Falls to Nine-Month Low

Consumer confidence fell in April to a nine-month low, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index.

The month’s preliminary index fell to a reading of 72.3, from 78.6 in March.

Economists had forecast the reading would be unchanged from the prior month, Bloomberg News reported.

The index averaged 89 in the five years before the recession that began in December 2007.