Conference Board

The Conference Board says people are more optimistic. Gallup says they aren't. Who are we to believe?

Once again the ABC Consumer Comfort index indicates that it is leaps and bounds more relevant than the ADP Private Payroll number. With increasingly less relevant confidence indicators out of UMichigan and the Conference Board, which lately only seem to "poll" 20 people with a $1MM+ Schwab trading account, it is worth noting what a true polling index says about the economy. And it isn't pretty: "Soaring gasoline prices slammed consumer sentiment into reverse this
week, threatening the slow recovery in economic views that’s been under
way. With gas now at record high for a February in Energy Department data
back to 1990, the weekly Consumer Comfort Index dropped by an unusually
steep 5 points to -46 on its scale of -100 to +100. It’s dropped that
far only 36 times in more than 1,300 weeks of ongoing polling since late
1985; this shift erases an equally unusual 5-point gain in early
January...After reaching -40 Jan. 9, the CCI is now at its low for the year, and
its lowest since Nov. 21. It averaged -46 in 2010 and -48 in 2009; those
compare with a lifetime average of -14 and a best-year +29 in 2000. Its
single best week was +38 in January 2000; its worst, -54 in December
2008 and again in January 2009." So strange: unlike with stocks, where inflation is somehow supposed to raise confidence, inflation for the people somehow leads to a near record plunge in confidence. But who are we to believe in this centrally planned economy when every single data point is now fit to be discarded as nothing more than evidence of propaganda.

Goldman's Andrew Tilton dissects today's NFP number, explaining why if it is weaker than expected (+146k) it is due to snow, and why if it stronger than expected, it is entirely due to the "economic recovery" (and not Bernanke's hyperinflationary mandate). Bottom line: win-win, while North African (and soon Middle East) regimes: lose-lose.

Even as the conference board reported that US consumer confidence recently surged to fresh multi-year highs, on who knows what: presumably the fact that ever more Americans are happy that Ben Bernanke can manipulate the stock market higher, it has continued to plunge in the UK, a country which is identical to ours, except for all the pervasive data manipulation. As Bloomberg reports, "Polling firm GfK NOP Friday said its headline measure of consumer confidence fell to -29 in January from -21 in December to reach its lowest level in 22 months." And more: "According to GfK's survey, consumers became significantly more pessimistic about the outlook for the economy in the coming 12 months, much more downbeat about their personal financial prospects, and much more reluctant to make major purchases. "January's eight point drop represents an astonishing collapse in consumer confidence," said Nick Moon, managing director of GfK NOP Social Research. "In the 35 years since the index began, confidence has only slumped this much on six occasions, the last being in the midst of the 1992 recession." And all this happened even before snow caused the UK economy to enter official stagflation. This is simply an advance indication of what will happen in the US once the Fed stops monetizing in June (which it won't), and when the last remnants of the latest bout of fiscal stimulus finally disappear. Unfortunately the government's recent attempt to break the oil price surge, which is the biggest black eye in its attempt to reflate, will fail spectacularly once Egypt formally revolts at some point over the next 6-12 hours.

The market was down strong in the morning as both fears of rising inflation in China and common sense seemed to hurt sentiment, but then...

The December Consumer Confidence (Conference Board, not UMich) number misses expectations of 56.3 by a mile printing at 52.5. This is also a material drop from the November 54.3 print. On the very important topic of jobs, "Those saying jobs are "plentiful" decreased to 3.9 percent from 4.3
percent, while those stating jobs are "hard to get" edged up to 46.8
percent from 46.3 percent." And while this completely irrelevant data point (and how it could be down when the market is up is beyond is) is pushing stocks lower, elsewhere we see the Richmond Fed come way ahead of expectations, coming at 25 on expectations of 11. Nonetheless, since the recent weakness in other regional diffusion indices has been completely ignored in recent weeks, we see no reason why the market should suddenly pay attention to this traditionally secondary Fed indicator.

Home prices, Richmond Fed, and a couple of readings on consumer confidence. More importantly, POMO is back, and Brian Sack will buy back $6-8 billion of bonds due 6/30/2013 – 11/30/2014, in the second to last POMO of the year. Tomorrow, Sack will buy some of the 2 Years that were auctioned off yesterday as the great shell game continues.

After an early morning reading on on-line advertising, we have claims, chain-store sales, pending home sales, and the Fed’s balance sheet. Away from the US, 7:45am Eastern sees the ECB rate decision, and at 8:30am is the important conference during which JCT is expected to announce more QE by the ECB. As Brian Yelvington from Knight securities observes, that this news can rise the EUR makes absolutely no sense: "The EUR has risen on this speculation, which seems to be a quandary as if the ECB does purchase, it is participating in QE which is a currency negative and if the ECB does not purchase as expected, it is a clear EMU and currency negative. Further, with over €1.5 trillion in principal and interest due in the next thirteen months alone, any solution would have to be quite sizable to stem the tides. The true solution will be systematic in nature and involve a central treasury-like facility. Till then, the rest is loud political noise."

The propaganda crew is out in full force today, as virtually the entire growth in the confidence number was in expectations. We expect a presidential address on how Americans are delighted that Europe is disintegrating, that Ireland is on the verge of civil disobedience, that jobless benefits are expiring and that one can barter a roll of toiler paper for a house.

Home prices, Chicago purchasing managers’ index, and the Conference Board’s confidence index, plus Chairman Bernanke in an informal Q&A setting. POMO today buys $6-8 billion. Two regional Fed presidents are also scheduled to speak (Kocherlakota at 12:30; Lacker at 19:00).….

The upcoming week will be dominated by the same key themes as last week. News on the European sovereign debt crisis, China tightening, the Korean conflict and macro data will remain in the limelight. However, with key US releases including Chigaco PMI, ISM and payrolls data watching may become relatively more important in the coming week. Then again, there is always the trust old FRBNY, which kicks off the reflation trade with not one but two POMOs tomorrow: altogether $39 billion in monetizations coming up in the next week.

With a 25% increase in poverty among Canadians 65-plus, there is no pension conundrum...

Speaking at the Bank of England on Monday, Ros Altmann, director-general of the Saga Group, warned that historically low interest rates could lead to another financial crash that would leave pension pots “decimated”. And it's not just a UK problem...

With just 20 minutes left until the real deal, Goldman highlights its case for ongoing economic weakness, in this case manifesting in an NFP number due at 8:30 am that is about 35K below consensus, at 60K, and Private Payrolls at 75K, also below exp of 80K. The three reasons for Goldman's bearishness: 1. State and local cutbacks, particularly in education; 2. The remaining wind-down of temporary Census employment; and 3. Little change in federal non-Census employment. Will they be right? Check back in 20 minutes to find out.

Contrary to conventional wisdom the SocGen duo of Edwards and Grice has not turned bullish (despite Dylan's "call" for a 63 million Nikkei). In the following note, Edwards debunks this recent fallacy. More importantly, Albert provides a geographic locus of where the next bubble pop will come from, which is no surprise as it is the focus of all capital flows - Emerging Markets. As he says: "The simple fact is that if, as I expect, QE2 fails and fiscal tightening sends the fragile western economies back into recession, we will see the unfolding liquidity driven EM and commodity bubble burst just as violently as it did in the second half of 2008." Sorry Albert, with every central bank now all in, and ammo for additional operations now gone, the next blow up with make the H2 2008 implosion seem like a walk in the park. This will be infinitely worse than Japan. Which is why the last ditch to preserve the Ponzi will be unlike what anyone has ever seen before.