S&P500 Vs. Consumer Confidence

The following commentary and chart is excerpted from the October 14, 2010 ContraryInvestor.com commentary.  I find it interesting in a variety of different ways, and it raises a lot of questions with regard to the stock market, consumer confidence, QE1, and QE2… _____ “We have not touched on consumer confidence for a good while, but …

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Updates On Economic Indicators October 2010

Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity.  These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The October Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of October 25, 2010: – The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: – The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: …

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Market Overview – Part III: Bond Market & Interest Rates

(this is the third in a series of five posts concerning the markets) The bond market is believed by many to be an asset bubble.  I agree with this assessment, and have written a few posts on the subject.  I discussed when it may “burst” and other considerations in an October 4 post. The chart …

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Market Overview – Part 1

This series of blog posts (5 posts) represents a periodic Technical Analysis of the markets.  In this series I will discuss currencies (US Dollar and Japanese Yen); Gold; The Bond Market & Interest Rates; and the Stock Market. I feel that this is an important juncture in investing for many reasons.  Many markets have experienced strong gains …

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What’s Ahead For The Housing Market – A Look At The Charts

There has been much written as to the future of residential real estate prices.  The consensus appears to be for very slight appreciation for years.  This consensus is echoed in the MacroMarkets September 2010 Home Price Expectations Survey Press Release (pdf).  Here is a chart from that survey that shows the past history (green line) …

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4 Confidence Charts – October 2010

Here are four charts reflecting confidence survey readings.  These are from the SentimenTrader.com site. I find these charts valuable as they provide a long-term history of each survey, which is rare. Each survey chart is plotted in blue, below the S&P500: (click on each chart to enlarge image) Conference Board Consumer Confidence, last updated 9-28-10: …

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Conference Board CEO Confidence

On October 1, I wrote a post about the Business Roundtable’s CEO Economic Outlook Survey and the Duke/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. Subsequent to that post, the Conference Board released its 3rd Quarter CEO Confidence Survey.   The overall measure of CEO Confidence was at 50, down from 62 in the second quarter. There are …

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