Consumer Confidence Rises Yet Again

Good numbers out today from the Thomson Reuters / University of Michigan consumer confidence index, which rose to 64.2 from last month’s 60.9, the third monthly gain. This is still a pretty low number, and I don’t put much stock in the index as a leading indicator. A perhaps more telling datapoint is the specific survey result that lots of people say they’re looking at buying a vehicle in the near future. A lot of the winter recovery thus far has been driven by the growth in car/truck sales, and this is, along with housing, the key cyclical sector.