The Conference Board has just released its monthly consumer confidence measure, and it was a big miss.

The measure dropped to 71.2 in October, down from 79.7 and missing economist expectations of 75.0.

 “Consumer confidence deteriorated considerably as the federal government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis took a particularly large toll on consumers’ expectations,” Conference Board Director Lynn Franco said in a statement.

“Similar declines in confidence were experienced during the payroll tax hike earlier this year, the fiscal cliff discussions in late 2012, and the government shutdown in 1995/1996. However, given the temporary nature of the current resolution, confidence is likely to remain volatile for the next several months.”

Respondents expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months dropped to 16% from 20.6%, but those expecting conditions to worsen jumped to 17.5% from 10.3%, according to the report.