Curious CapitalistEconomy
Consumer confidence is up, and the new jobs numbers — the U.S. added 227,000 jobs in February, the third straight month of 200,000-plus gains — show that the U.S. economy continues to improve. Does that mean we are going to finally start seeing a shift out of the era of fearful, volatile markets that we’ve been in for over three …
Last year was a rollercoaster ride for the stock market. In 2011, the Dow Jones Industrial Average raced to a high of 12,810 in April before skidding to 10,404 in October. Then, in the final three months of the year, the Dow …
Anyone looking for evidence that there are two Americas should check out the latest round of real estate statistics.
On the one hand, the financial-analytics company FiServ warns that home prices are expected to fall 3.6% by …
Today’s consumers are increasingly likely to pay off credit card bills in full, skip vacations, dine out less, hold off on buying big-ticket items like new cars, and even trim everyday expenses by, say, subbing a generic cereal …
Consumers are issuing a big vote of "no confidence" in the economy — and that's holding back the stock market.
Wells Fargo stock market analyst Al Goldman, who’s followed stocks for 50 years, once said, “Two emotions rule the stock market. One is greed and one is fear.” Make no mistake, greed is still alive and well on Wall Street. But …
Welcome back to the sour economy.
It didn’t take long after the Memorial Day break to get the latest signs that the recovery remains in the gutter. The housing market has been looking like it was headed for a double dip for some time. On Tuesday, we got confirmation that it happened. According to the S&P/Case-Shilller housing index, …
The mass cheering over Osama Bin Laden’s death was, well, kind of weird. But even weirder (for Wall Street watchers that is) was that the stock market didn’t bounce on the news, especially since, as noted earlier on this blog, “Bin Laden has been a major contributor to the booming federal deficit, much more so than the federal bank …
Americans won’t fully open their wallets until there are more jobs (photo: Fred Prouser/REUTERS)
January’s consumer confidence number just trickled in, and it’s better than anticipated. The headline index rose to 60.3, from 53.3 in December: the market expected it to come in at 54.0. That’s an 8-month high, and the strongest …
