Washington  - Consumer confidence continued to improve in September before the recent turmoil in credit markets and Wall Street, data released Tuesday showed.

The New York-based Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence rose to 59.8 up from 58.5 in August as the short-term outlook improved.

The survey of 5,000 households ended September 23 and it remained unclear what impact further failures of financial institutions, large swings in the stock market and the collapse of a bailout deal would have on the index.

"These results did not capture all of tumultuous events in the financial sector this month, and until the dust settles a bit more, we will not know the full impact on consumers' expectations," Lynn Franco, director of the board's consumer research centre, said in a statement.

The board's measure of expectations rose to 60.5 in September from 54.1 a month earlier, but views of the present situation fell to 58.8 from 65.0. Business conditions were described as bad by 34.2 per cent of respondents, up from 32.7 per cent; and 32.8 per cent said jobs were hard to get, up from 31.7 per cent.

Franco said shocks like those experienced over the last week typically drag down consumer confidence for two to four months, unless they are accompanied by significant job losses. (dpa)