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Friday, May 29, 2009

Consumer, Financial, and Investor Indexes Continue to March Higher

Consumer confidence indexes continued their march higher in May. The widely watched University of Michigan and Reuters index rose in its final reading of the month reaching it's highest level since last September.

Previously the Michigan index rose to 68.7 from 65.1 in April.

The more dynamic Rasmussen consumer index also continues to post solid gains. That index now stands at 73.0, up four points from a week ago and up seven points from a month ago. The Rasmussen consumer index is now thirteen points above the first reading of the year.

Throughout May the Bloomberg Financial Conditions Index (BFCIUS:IND) has rebounded sharply. The index combines yield spreads and indices from the Money Markets, Equity Markets, and Bond Markets into one normalized index. It closed the month at a near normal level of -2.17.

Meanwhile, the Rasmussen Investor index surged, closing the week up sixteen points from just a week ago and twenty-three points from the beginning of the year. Among investors surveyed a full third now report economic conditions getting better.

4 comments:

  1. GNE,

    The GDP report revising GDP up was pretty good, right? Care to guess when the stock market will return to its 2007 high?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Economic condition has improved to a certain extent world wide but it still needs to improve a lot to get back to its previous condition.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Do you think the GM bankruptcy will slow down the recovery?

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Anon1,
    No I'd rather not guess, but the GDP revision was indeed encouraging.

    @Mort guy,
    Care to specify what specifically needs to improve to get back to (what) previous condition?

    @Anon2,
    I don't think that the GM bankruptcy will have a significant negative impact. In fact from what I see the government doing it perhaps might just be the boost that the auto industry needs to get out of the doldrums.

    ReplyDelete

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