Market comments for Oct. 15th, 2010

The big news today for me was Univ. of Michigan's Consumer Confidence number. It came in at 67.9 vs. 68.2 for September. So it is clearly lower. Market Expectations were for it to come in at 68.5. Other data released was CPI, which came in at +0.1% and Core CPI which came in at 0%. That is one of the reasons there will not be an increase in Social Security checks in 2011, there is no inflation according to these numbers which have been steady near zero, for most of the year.

Retail Sales improved +0.6% for September, was due to large purchase items they say. Expectations were for them to be 0.2%. Well it wasn't me that bought a large ticket item, just a small cute poodle. :)

Not much to crow about today for the Bulls as the market has dropped somewhat. The Dow is down about 25 points at the time of this post.

And as a Public Service announcement, today all late filers must file taxes which are due for State and Federal taxes. They must be postmarked with today's date in order to avoid late penalties.

Market comments for Oct. 1st (UPDATE)

Personal Income data and Personal Spending data have been released this morning. For Personal Income the data came in at +0.5% while expectations were for +0.3%. For Personal Spending, the data came in at +0.4%, while expectations were for +0.3%. Both of these data are backwards looking as they are for August, not September.

Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for September comes out after the market is open at 6:55am PST. Also at that time to be released is Construction Spending, ISM Index. Auto Sales and Truck Sales data will be released at 11:00am PST. All this data will be updated later today as they become available.

So far that's a nice jump in Personal Income and Spending. Futures are pointed up with the Dow up 55 points and the S&P up 6 points.

UPDATE: 7:05am PST

The ISM index came in at 54.4, which was lower than the expected 55.0 number. This is a September number. Construction Spending was up +0.4%, which is much more than the -0.7% expected number. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Final number for Sept. came in better than expected at 68.2 vs. an expected 67.0 reading. The ISM index is more optimistic than what people are feeling. The growth is not showing real growth enough to have a recovery but may not be as bad to cause a double dip.

GDP disappoints for Q2 (UPDATE)

GDP came in at 2.4% for the second quarter. I expected this but experts had expected 3.0%. Dow Futures dropped about 80 points. GDP Deflator came in at up 1.8%. They revised Q1 to being up 3.7%. from the previous data of 2.7%. So we have gone from a 3.7% in Q1 to 2.4% in Q2. This proves GDP is going down and making the case for a double dip recession more certain. Finally we have some data which confirms the disconnect which has been going on lately that there is a disconnect between the stock market and the reality of the economy. Now comes the spin from the talking heads on CNBC or just changing the subject so we don't focus too long on the GDP disappointment. Remember our debt as a percentage of GDP is what determines whether we can borrow money or not. This hurts the case for cheaper borrowing to fund our debt.

In just a little while this morning, we will get the Univ. of Michigan Consumer Confidence number, which should be like a hammer to this market. The number will come in much worse than originally expected. The market should not be up today as there is no positive way to look at this data. All the spin in the world can't put lipstick on this pig. The big question is how low the market will go today. It should be significant given the real data.

Come back later for the Updates on Consumer Confidence posted as part of this post. Look for the additional word UPDATE in the title.

Consumer Confidence for July came in at 67.8 versus expected number of 67.5.