U.S. stock market reaches all-time high, but consumer confidence has never been lower

```htmlGlonhui May 25th｜The mood among Americans is evidently very bad, but the stock market is clearly not reflecting this. Usually, this is not the case. Historically, high stock prices are often accompanied by happy consumers, and vice versa. How bad is consumer confidence? Americans have just set some kind of milestone. Last Friday, the University of Michigan reported that its Consumer Sentiment Index fell to the lowest level in more than 70 years of survey history. At the beginning of this year, consumer confidence was already at a low level; at the end of February, the outbreak of the Iran war caused gasoline prices to soar, and this indicator dropped sharply as a result. Before this year, the previous lowest point of the index occurred in June 2022, when inflation was at the highest level in decades. The consumer sentiment reading released on Friday was even 10% lower than that previous low. "Prices are still extremely high, the labor market has obviously weakened over the past four years, and now we're in the midst of a war," said Joanne Hsu, director of consumer surveys at the University of Michigan. "I don't think it's surprising that the index fell below the level of June 2022." However, looking at the stock market performance alone, also on Friday, the S&P 500 achieved its eighth consecutive week of gains, and the Dow Jones set a record closing high for the second consecutive trading day.```