Here are four charts reflecting confidence survey readings. The first three are from the SentimenTrader.com site.
I find these charts valuable as they provide a long-term history of each survey, which is somewhat 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 3-27-12:
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Thomson/Reuters University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, last updated 3-30-12:
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Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index (formerly the ABC News Consumer Comfort Index) last updated 3-27-12:
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NFIB Small Business Optimism chart, from Doug Short’s blog post of March 30 updated through February:
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As one can see, these charts continue to show subdued readings, especially when viewed from a long-term perspective.
These charts should be interesting to monitor going forward. Although I don’t believe that confidence surveys should be overemphasized, they do help to delineate how the economic environment is being perceived.
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 1408.47 as this post is written