Gallup Poll Suggest Consumers Gaining Confidence

Thanks to Rich Roedger for this contribution:

It’s no surprise to me, since I see traffic on this site rise and fall pretty much dimetrically opposite of stock market results.  If the stock market rallies, traffic slows.  If it tanks, traffic goes through the roof.  I rarely post news about the stock market, and those of you who have read here for a while have seen  my editorials about the stock market.   And my friend Eldon Mast over at the Good News Economist concurs. “Kind of like the tail wagging the dog” Eldon emailed to me recently.

I call it Las Vegas East, because the averages are simply what someone is willing to pay for a stock, not truly what the company is worth, how much money it’s making, if it’s liquid or not, or what it’s business plan says.  Now all these things are taken into consideration when an investor purchases part of a company (or should be).  However, if the guy next door wants 500,000 shares, and so do you, it now becomes an Ebay bidding war…and the value of those shares rise accordingly…now suddenly we’ve switched gears from true value to what each thinks these share will be worth in one week, one month, one year. “Think” being the operative word.

I would rather have confidence in our economy be placed on things like GDP, Purchasing indexes, housing, leadership outlooks, etc… real fundamentals that guide what’s really going on and don’t bounce around like a kid in a candy store each day.

That being said “whew” whatever it takes to make consumers more confident, I’m all for it, except that if the market drops next week, so will moods, and these highs and lows need medication…and blogs like this can be the right medicine to help balance out all the lows from mainstream…

OK…now to the link… Thanks Rich for bringing this to us.  It’s good to see moods nearly double in just a few short weeks.  There’s more positive stories coming out of industry, housing, and I’m beginning to really feel like the last part of this year could result in the “coming out” party we’ve all been looking for.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-03-26-poll_N.htm

Tags: consumer confidence, consumer confidence polls, economic news, gallup poll, good economic news, Positive Economic News