Consumer

The reading fell to 71.8 from 77.6 in February, as Bloomberg reports.  Almost as disturbing as the actual decline is the gap between what the experts predicted and what actually came to pass.  This was, according to Zero Hedge, "the biggest miss on record."

Consumers, it seems, have reason to lack confidence not only in the economy but in the economists who are supposed to understand the economy.

There are two ways to look at the profits reports that are emerging from corporate boardrooms, often after a brief stop for an added shine at the office of the firms’ accountants. One is to find out just how this or that firm has been doing in the past quarter, compared with a year ago and with analysts’ expectations. I leave that to security analysts, whose job it is to move from that information to a guess as to what it portends for the future, and from there to a  “buy,” “sell,” or “hold” recommendation. With some 80 percent of companies thus far reporting exceeding analysts’ (modest) expectations, and their earnings increasing by 40 percent compared with last year, there is cheer in the counting houses.