After the abysmal March labor report, all we - and the Fed - can say is that April better be good, or else Yellen's claim of "transitory weakness" will simply be the latest nail in the coffin of Fed credibility. Here is the consensus for the key numbers the BLS will report at 8:30am ET on Friday morning.
It appears we can now add "consumer confidence" to fake news trash heap.
Roughly at the same time as the allegedly apolitical Conference Board reported the highest consumer confidence print in 17 years...
... not to mention the most optimistic outlook on stocks since 2 months before the dot com bubble burst, a very different number emerged from a similar poll by Gallup.
First, a reminder of what the Conf. Board said this morning:
Continuing the trend of 'soft' survey data strong performance and expectation beats, The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence surged above the highest analyst's expectation to 114.8 - the best print since July 2001.
Consumers’ assessment of current conditions held relatively steady in February. Those saying business conditions are “good” declined slightly from 29.0 percent to 28.7 percent, while those saying business conditions are “bad” also decreased, from 15.9 percent to 13.2 percent.
The Conference Board's consumer confidence measure has hovered around the 95 level for the last 6 months (as gas prices dipped and ripped, as stock prices dipped and ripped, and as political chaos reigned). This 'stability' is in stark contrast to other surveys of confidence such as Bloomberg's and Gallup's which are both at multi-month lows... until today. Consumer Confidence plunged to 92.6 (missing expectations of 96.1 by the most since November).