INVESTOR CONFIDENCE in the stock market will rise or fall today with consumer confidence, specifically the monthly report on that closely watched barometer of the economy.
The Conference Board, the business research group that measures what we think about our own financial future, will report the February number at 10 a.m. ET. Ahead of the number, stocks opened mostly lower. The Dow was right around the flat line, but the Nasdaq fell 21 and the S&P 500 fell two. Most of the morning's headlines talked of weak profits and analyst downgrades, but sentiment could change rapidly after the confidence stats.
This number is getting a closer-than-usual look these days because it's seen as a way to forecast whether economic growth will recover this year and how fast. Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the economy, and if we're collectively less confident of the future, we tend to spend less. As stocks have fallen lately, consumers have gotten extremely worried about the future, and that has the potential to become a self-fullfilling prophecy of economic decline.
For that reason Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been watching the number as he tries to figure out how fast and how much to cut interest rates to boost sentiment. In the last couple of days, the stock market has been betting it'll be soon and a lot.
The Conference Board, the business research group that measures what we think about our own financial future, will report the February number at 10 a.m. ET. Ahead of the number, stocks opened mostly lower. The Dow was right around the flat line, but the Nasdaq fell 21 and the S&P 500 fell two. Most of the morning's headlines talked of weak profits and analyst downgrades, but sentiment could change rapidly after the confidence stats.
This number is getting a closer-than-usual look these days because it's seen as a way to forecast whether economic growth will recover this year and how fast. Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the economy, and if we're collectively less confident of the future, we tend to spend less. As stocks have fallen lately, consumers have gotten extremely worried about the future, and that has the potential to become a self-fullfilling prophecy of economic decline.
For that reason Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has been watching the number as he tries to figure out how fast and how much to cut interest rates to boost sentiment. In the last couple of days, the stock market has been betting it'll be soon and a lot.
