Business

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence measure for September disappointex expectations with both current and future indices dropping (the former more than the latter).

Differences across regions are very notable as storms impacted confidence...

However, what is most concerning (for the powers-that-be), is the plunge in faith that the stock market will go higher...

This is the lowest confidence in continued stock market gains since the election.

Extending July's weakness (in new, existing, and pending home sales), August is off to a rough start with existing sales and now new home sales has collapsed (down 3.4% vs expectations of a 2.5% gain). July's big plunge in sales was revised slightly higher but this left August with a 560k SAAR sales rate - the weakest since Dec 2016.

This is the first back to back decline in new home sales since June 2016.

Bloomberg does not that there may be caveats to this data (aren't there always?).

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

I have been getting a tremendous number of emails as of late asking if the latest rally in oil prices, and related energy stocks, is sustainable or is it another “trap” as has been witnessed previously.

With geopolitical turmoil mounting, for North Korea to Iran, and as natural disasters have rocked the refinery capital of the world (Houston,) the question is not surprising.

By all appearances it seems the market has now reduced the half-life of global nuclear armageddon threats to around 20 hours as Gold's gains have been erased overnight and USDJPY retraced its losses...

Despite a slew of disappointing sales (new, existing, and pending), Case-Shiller reports national home prices rose 5.94% YoY - the fastest rise since June 2014 - hitting a new record high (now over 5% above 2006's peak).

It has now been 36 straight months that the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Compoosite home price index has risen at approximately 5 to 6% annually and it has been 62 months without any YoY price drops...

Gains in New York and Los Angeles dominated the annual performance.