May's preliminary UMich confidence print of 81.8 was the biggest miss to expectations in 8 years [5]. In the two weeks since then, the 'economists' have ratcheted back their exuberance to an expectation of 82.5... and still it missed at 81.9. So two weeks of exuberant equity markets have done nothing to soothe the consumer. The Current conditions sub-index tumbled to its lowest since Nov 2013 (and the outlook dropped also). Stock pushers are going to need higher highs if the dream of multiple expansion is to live on....So just as reminder, against the initial expectations, May's consumer confidence missed by the most in 8 years.
[6]
Of course - as we have noted previously [7] - - confidence is the key number for continued exuberance in hope-fueled multiple-expansion...
But, it's all about confidence... investors will not be willing to pay increasing multiples unless they are confident that the future streams of earnings are sustainable and forecastable... And simply put, the current levels of Consumer Sentiment need to almost double for the US equity market to approach historical multiple valuation levels...
[8]
