The Market Ticker notes that consumer confidence is sinking:
There’s no good news embedded in here. Personal finances and the buying climate dropped by amounts matching their largest one-week change ever, possibly spurred by people getting their credit-card statements from Christmas (or simply reflecting on what they spent – and determining it was too much.)
Only nine percent rate the economy positively.
Shockingly, the news of the Federal Reserve printing massive profits for itself and bankers paying themselves huge bonuses hasn’t convinced people fearing for their jobs and cutting back on their expenses that all is well. And the whole “stock market advance as leading indicator” isn’t exactly the most convincing argument on offer in light of the fact that everyone can still remember what all the cheerleaders were saying when the Dow was over 14,000.
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Breeding Ilk… that’s all the world needs now.