Rising US Consumer Confidence Numbers: There’s Really No Reason To Celebrate

The consumer confidence numbers appeared to be better then expected today (Tuesday), suggesting that the consumer is regaining confidence in the markets. I question this. If you read the link on the Conference Board’s website, it explains that the cutoff of the data was actually 5/19/09. If you look at the graph above, it shows that confidence has been increasing since the very end of February. WOW.

It’s interesting to note that the markets bottomed at the end of February/beginning of March. Isn’t this increasing confidence already priced into the market?

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) has rallied since the end of February and topped out at 927 on 5/8/09. It tried to retest the highs but failed. It failed right around the 18th or 19th of May, which was the cutoff date for the survey conducted by the conference board.

The data on jobs that has been coming out weekly has been terrible. The housing data has been terrible. There’s really no reason to celebrate confidence. There’s a lack of jobs and the consumer is still re-trenching, licking his wounds from the losses suffered in the markets. Speculators are buying up stocks, but the underlying economy is still not good. Let’s see what the confidence numbers looks like when the markets retest the 666 lows…

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