Consumer confidence up in August. However...

Consumer confidence rose 2.5 points to 53.5 in August, better than expected. Consumers felt better about the outlook, upgrading future expectations by 7.4 points while still feeling gloomy about the current situation, which fell nearly 5 points.

To put this number in perspective, especially as it pertains to recessionary periods, consider that during an average recession, consumer confidence averages about 70 (even with the August improvement, we are nearly 17 points below that). We are nowhere near expansionary level, which averages over 100. ---ibid