By Burton Frierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumers' confidence plunged to a five-year low this month on worries over rising inflation and fewer jobs, with a record drop in home values in January providing additional cause for their woes, reports showed on Tuesday.
Prices of existing single-family homes slumped about 11 percent in January from the same month in 2007, according to two closely watched Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller gauges.
A report by the Conference Board showed consumer expectations for the future were at a 34-year low in March and anxieties over job prospects and inflation at their highest since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in late 2005.
The Board said its index of consumer sentiment fell in March to 64.5 -- the lowest since March 2003 -- from an upwardly revised 76.4 in February.
"These are dramatic declines with all the bad news hitting consumers," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at research consultancy Global Insight in Waltham, Massachusetts. "It's hard to say anything positive for the consumers."
On Wall Street, stocks fell after the reports but were mixed by midday, while the dollar weakened broadly. U.S. government bonds, which usually benefit from signs of economic weakness, posted solid gains.
The median forecast of economists polled by Reuters was for a consumer confidence reading of 73.5 in March. February's index was originally reported at 75.0.
The Conference Board, a private business and research organization, said its expectations index fell to 47.9 -- the lowest since January 1974 -- from an upwardly revised 58.0 in February.
In another troubling sign, the measure of "jobs hard to get" rose to 25.1 in March -- the highest since October 2005 -- from a slightly downwardly revised 23.4 in February.
The measure of "jobs plentiful" fell to 18.8 in March -- the lowest since November 2004 -- from an upwardly revised 21.5 in February.
"The labor component of the confidence index, especially, is worth pointing out," said Josh Stiles, senior bond strategist at research consultancy Ideaglobal in New York. "Most Americans are stretched right now and not spending at a normal pace. This is significant."
The Conference Board's 1-year inflation expectation gauge rose to 6.1 percent in March, the highest since October 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which sent gasoline prices soaring.
In October 2005, the group's inflation barometer was at 6.4 percent after hitting 6.8 percent the previous month.
Reflecting the freeze in the housing sector, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller composite month-over-month home price index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.4 percent, to 180.65 from December, bringing the measure down 10.7 percent from a year earlier and 12.5 percent from its July 2006 peak.
S&P said its composite month-over-month index of 10 metropolitan areas fell 2.3 percent to 196.06 for an 11.4 percent year-over-year drop.
It was a record annual fall for both indices.
(Additional Reporting by Ellen Freilich and Richard Leong; Editing by Dan Grebler)
