Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Not Very Satisfying Data Today

The consumer confidence numbers were disappointing (to me) this morning even though they were in the realm of those expected by the "consenus."  Also disappointing were the manufacturing activity data out of the Chicago, Dallas and Richmond Fed districts over the past couple of days and the retail sales numbers reported this morning.  The only data that seemed reasonably favorable was the institutional investors' confidence number reported by State Street.  (However, see the concerns I raised in a prior post to this blog regarding hedge fund equity buying activity over the past few months).  In spite of today's "lethargic" data, the markets have remained flat to only slightly down for most of the day.

Tomorrow we'll see durables goods orders followed by jobless claims and GDP data on Thursday and personal income/outlays and Chicago PMI numbers on Friday.  If these data points leave us unsatisfied, I expect the markets to move toward the 3-5% correction we've been waiting for.