(The Conference Board: New York) -- The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had declined in June 2012, improved slightly in July. The index now stands at 65.9, up from 62.7 in June. The Expectations Index improved to 79.1, from 73.4. The Present Situation Index, however, decreased slightly to 46.2 from 46.6 a month ago.

The monthly Consumer Confidence Survey, based on a probability-design random sample, is conducted for The Conference Board by Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and analytics around what consumers buy and watch. The cutoff date for the preliminary results was July 19.

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