Gary Thayer
Gary Thayer
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Fewer people are worried about jobs right now, more people think that jobs are easy to get, and I think that's supporting confidence despite the high energy prices.
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Confidence is up again -- to the highest level in over two years. Consumers are feeling better not only about current conditions, but also about prospects for the future.
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The upturn in confidence is an encouraging sign that economic conditions are stabilizing after the hurricanes. Lower energy prices are helping, but the upturn in employment is also a plus.
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It shows that consumers are feeling poorly about the economy, similar to what we've see in other recessions. Confidence is not as low as it was in the recessions of the early 1990s and early 1980s, but it is dropping in response to the worsening employment situation and the concern about the terrorism threat.
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It looks like the economy is stabilizing after the hurricane-related stresses and we're heading into the holidays with an upturn in confidence that is encouraging and bodes well for the good consumer spending over the next month or so.
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Overall, confidence is still at a healthy level, up from where it was a year ago, but we did pull back a bit from the three-year high that we saw in June.
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Historically, when we see confidence decline, we have to watch and see if it shows up also affecting spending. We'll be watching closely to see ... whether the decline in confidence is more of a psychological factor or a real factor affecting spending.
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Inflation is creeping up, but it's not out of hand. I think that's pretty important. The bond market may have discounted a worst-case scenario over the last couple of months on inflation, and now maybe traders won't have to worry about the Fed moving too fast.
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It's still a good reading overall, but not quite as robust as we've seen in the last several months. The encouraging thing is that the employment component increased again. We are beginning to see businesses becoming a little more willing to hire.
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It's sort of a good news-bad news situation though, because if it gets out of hand, it can create other problems for the economy.
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The big number is the employment number on Friday. If that number comes in weak for the third consecutive month, views on the Fed are likely to change significantly.
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The bond market liked the inflation data. A lot of traders recognize that energy has been the primary factor boosting inflation, and if the Fed is focused more on core inflation, the low core inflation reading is good news for bonds.
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The bond market had been thinking that the weak economic numbers that we've seen would cause the Fed to think twice about raising rates,
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These numbers show the economy is indeed in recession, and they leave the door open for the Fed to cut rates again.