Consumer confidence "plummets"

Yikes. We haven't seen numbers this bad since the first Bush was in office.

The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index, compiled from a survey of U.S. households, dropped 18.9 points to 86.6, from a revised reading of 105.5.

That marked the biggest fall since October 1990 when the index fell 23 points to 62.6 in the wake of the recession. The September reading was also the lowest level since October 2003, when it registered 81.7.

Analysts had expected the September reading to be 98.