Markets Disappointed by Decline in Consumer Confidence

Financial markets are reacting rather poorly to the first "more bad" report in months on consumer confidence from the Conference Board. Usually cheery Econoday notes that the "consumer sector appears to have crumbled in June" after the one-two punch of sagging consumer confidence and a disappointing report on chain-store sales.
The consumer confidence index dropped some ten percent, from 54.9 in May to 49.3 in June, news that came as a surprise to analysts who were looking for further improvement as rising unemployment and rising gasoline prices continue to take their toll.

Comments

[Larry House:]

Market action always has to be tagged to something, but the state of the consumer has been common knowledge for some time. This should not be a surprise to anyone. I think it just gives some traders a reason to take some profits.

Jun 30 03:39 PM

[Ryu Mei Co:]

The weak consumer confidence data was not a surprise, it was expected. To me it was funny how amateur traders reacted to the news and sold off immediately at 10am (Look at your lvl 2 data).

By the way, yesterday's rally was accompanied with a weak volume, thus, many smart money had already left the market leaving the dumb money holding the bag.

Jun 30 10:04 PM

[lex:]

thats coz the mkt is being manipulated by obama and team


On Jun 30 08:11 PM head injury wrote:

> This market just doesn't feel like giving up the ghost. We get some
> bad consumer confidence data and the DJIA shrugs it off mostly. It's
> funny how the market surges 38% on some Green shits BS and when it
> looks like these shits are in jeopardy it only gives up 8/10 %? wtf?
>
>
> good finance articles: heavysidetrade.blogspo.../

Jul 01 12:24 AM

[cameroni:]

The average consumer is the last to know what is going on it seems. Confidence and the lack of it seems to be bred out of the 6-o-clock news.

But the typical consumer does not read Seeking Alpha or the daily business pages anyway. I am always surprised when talking to friends how "out of the loop" they are. How critical they are too about the machinations of the current economy and any thinking that does not jive with what they saw on TV. Like lambs to the slaughter.

They are not ignorant though. They all seem to have the vague idea that something very major is going wrong in the economy but seem totally unprepared for whatever that "thing" might be. There best solution seems to be to just withhold some spending for the moment.

But in the bigger picture I have felt very discouraged about discussing the widening abyss in the poor economic numbers from the daily reality that everyone lives through. People don't want to hear that bad news. They want a positive message and they want to believe things will be better.

Maybe some optimistic views are a good thing even if it closes our minds to the issues ahead of us. I prefer to stay informed though.

Does anyone else feel that way too?

Jul 01 12:34 AM

[Ted Hurlbut:]

Let's look at this over a longer period than one month. One data point does not make a trend. Consumer confidence had been improving for the last few months prior to this report. It's going to take several more months before we can put this report in perspective.

Ted Hurlbut
www.hurlbutassociates.com

Jul 01 10:06 AM