On February 4, 2014 Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Continued to Improve in January.” The subtitle is “Index improves for third consecutive month.”
Notable excerpts include:
Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index improved slightly for the month of January, climbing to -16 from -19 in December. Although a disheartening jobs report and steep stock market losses negatively affected Americans’ confidence in the short term, Americans’ economic confidence improved for the third month in a row after dipping to -35 during the federal government shutdown in October.
also:
The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is the average of two components: Americans’ views on the current economic situation and their economic outlook. The current economic conditions component of the index averaged -18 in January, based on 18% rating the economy as excellent or good versus 36% rating it poor. The economic outlook component was -13 in January, with 41% of Americans saying the economy is getting better and 54% saying it is getting worse.
Here is an accompanying chart of the Gallup Economic Confidence Index:
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 1755.45 as this post is written