I skipped reporting on yesterday's University of Michigan consumer sentiment report, but William Polley didn't. Here's the very short version, sampled from this MSNBC report:
The University of Michigan said its measure of confidence had slipped to 92.9 so far this month from 94.1 in February, according to market sources who saw the subscription-only report...
The survey's expectations component eased to 83.6 from 84.4, while sentiment on current conditions dipped to 107.3 from 109.2.
Of course, as we have earlier discussed, the informational content of consumer confidence measures seems to be slim to none.
William also takes note of the Thursday release of the February leading index from the Conference Board. The bottom line (from the Conference Board press release):
- The leading index increased slightly in February following a decline in January. The leading index was on a rising trend from early 2003 to the middle of 2004, declined slightly for the next five months, and has now been increasing slightly since last October. In addition, there has been about an equal mix of strengths and weaknesses among its components.
- The coincident index, an index of current economic activity, increased in February, and the strength in the coincident index continues to be widespread.
UPDATE: The Capital Spectator takes note of the leading indicator release as well, in a post that includes a lot of other interesting comments.
Oh, yes. There was also the February export and import price report yesterday. Although the headline number for import prices was kind of scary, that largely reflected the impact of oil prices. The ex-petroleum index continues to tick up some, but it doesn't seem like anyone is taking much notice.