Just Like That – We Are All Confident

It really is amazing to me as I look over the latest consumer confidence numbers.  The prior month’s reading showed a better than 50% surge in confidence. This last month reported a 34% higher than expected surge again in consumer confidence.   The reason for the optimism, reports the conference board, is the “recent jumps in [...]

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When Reality Sinks In – Illusive Confidence Snaps

Today offers us a good example of what happens when the illusion of confidence is broken.  Let’s start with the headlines this morning:
Stocks Sink as Retail Sales Slide
You mean to tell me that people aren’t buying things?  I am shocked!!  I thought that everything was recovering and OK.  
Then there was this headline -  U.S. Foreclosure Filings [...]

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Creative Confidence Building

The market is getting all types of signs of confidence.   Everyone with a vested interest in this turning around (with the exception of President Obama who still doesn’t understand that the market matters) is doing everything possible to build confidence. 
First, you have Citigroup’s CEO, Vikram Pandit, sending out an “internal” memo stating that they were going [...]

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