Consumer sentiment in the US edged higher in early February, the last of this week’s macro data showed.

The uptick on the University of Michigan’s gauge counted as the third consecutive increase and came on the heels of outsized gains during the prior two months.

The headline preliminary print for this month was 79.6. Consensus wanted 80. The range of guesses (sorry, “forecasts”) was 74.2 to 85. The current conditions gauge was marginally lower in Friday’s release and the expectations index slightly higher.

Recall that the headline rose 29% (nearly 18 points) across December and January as inflation expectations receded and Americans fortunate enough to own financial assets enjoyed an on-paper windfall from the two-month, year-end “everything rally” in stocks, bonds and credit.

There are two ways to look at February’s muted sentiment gain. The glass half-empty take says the rebound’s over and we’re nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. Survey director Joanne Hsu had the glass half-full read. “Consumer sentiment was essentially unchanged from January, solidifying the large gains from the past two months,” she said Friday. “The fact that sentiment lost no ground suggests consumers continue to feel more assured about the economy.”

Hmm. Maybe. The question is what it’s going to take to get consumer moods back to early-2021 levels, which is to say back to levels observed when Joe Biden’s approval ratings were solid. Democrats won’t be able to mail out any more stimulus checks, and in case you haven’t heard, there’s an election coming up later this year. Sentiment remains around 5% below its long-term average.

Inflation expectations moved up very slightly at the one-year point (to 3% from 2.9%) and were unchanged at 2.9% for the five-year horizon. That’s ok — I guess. Ideally, you want that five-year point to recede further, and this week’s realized inflation news was inauspicious. Friday’s PPI report came in hot, confirming the signal from an uncomfortable CPI release.

I don’t want to paint an unnecessarily dour picture, though. As Hsu went on to note, the medium-term outlook for business conditions was the most optimistic in quite some time, and although the partisan divide remains stark, the marked upturn in consumer moods since December is a bipartisan affair, with gains “visible across all three political groups, reflecting [a] broad-based perception of improvement in the trajectory of the economy.”

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