Should be interesting if enough posters respond.:wtf:

Should be interesting if enough posters respond.:wtf:

 

Up? Yes. Way up? Not so sure about that.

Definitely. But I was in law school when the housing market fell through and everything went to heck, so I can't say whether I'm better off now because my confidence is so high or because I actually have a real job and a real income stream. I'm going with the latter. Anecdotal evidence isn't going to be helpful in my case.

Yes. I believe our economy is about to go on a strong positive run for several years.

Definitely. But I was in law school when the housing market fell through and everything went to heck, so I can't say whether I'm better off now because my confidence is so high or because I actually have a real job and a real income stream. I'm going with the latter. Anecdotal evidence isn't going to be helpful in my case.

 

I woudn't say my confidence is up because my personal situation is any better than it was five years ago, my confidence is up just from looking around. The stock market is up it appears due to companies reaching better earnings. The unemployment level has been steadily decreasing, I believe it is 7.5% right now. Finding a job in Louisville seems to be easier. By no means do I think things are rosey, I just thing they are better off than five years ago and it would appear will slowly continue to get better.

I woudn't say my confidence is up because my personal situation is any better than it was five years ago, my confidence is up just from looking around. The stock market is up it appears due to companies reaching better earnings. The unemployment level has been steadily decreasing, I believe it is 7.5% right now. Finding a job in Louisville seems to be easier. By no means do I think things are rosey, I just thing they are better off than five years ago and it would appear will slowly continue to get better.

 

I think you're correct there. Just in my office, the average monthly instances of people looking to file bankruptcy are definitely down, so hopefully things have leveled off a big. And my brother found a job right out of college, which at the time I was in law school was something my whole family worried about (granted, he has a degree in something very marketable as opposed to my own undergraduate degree).

My confidence has never been better. I can't wait to hit the Polo Store in Myrtle Beach next week. I can't wait to shop for a newer car in about a year or so. I can't wait to try to add a pool to our house. I can't wait to make this bet on the Belmont.

 

 

My confidence has never been higher.

I think it's a false confidence. I personally feel good about my situation but I don't feel good about the economy as a whole. The next economic meltdown will be on student loan defaults.

I personally feel good about my situation but I don't feel good about the economy as a whole.

 

This pretty much sums it up for me. Our family has done fine financially when others were really struggling. In terms of confidence with the U.S. economy, I haven't felt good about it for several years now.

I think it's a false confidence. I personally feel good about my situation but I don't feel good about the economy as a whole. The next economic meltdown will be on student loan defaults.

 

One of the segments of the company I work for deals with/in student loans, best way to describe it is here comes the boom, its gonna be ugly.

Funny, I was about to start a post about how deceptive the information seems to be about the economy. First off, in graduate school, we read a book called "A Random Walk on Wall Street", and one of the tenets is called "rational expectations" having to do with stock and market evaluation. If most people think things are getting better, then they usually will, if most people think they are getting worse, they usually will. Thus, I have seen the media through several administrations paint the economy in the way they feel will best support their leanings regardless of the impact on the individual.

 

In today's situation, I believe we are still on the "fiscal cliff"...their are several aspects of our economy that put us at risk: the ever-growing deficit; banks and lenders are on shaky ground which is limiting the amount of borrowing for investment, thus keeping capital and housing prices down; and unemployment. (Real estate prices in my neighborhood have plummeted in the last year by 10 to 20% more than 2008.) Unemployment is still high, just more people are off the reporting roles. Incomplete direction from the federal government regarding the rules, insurance, taxes all creates uncertainty.

 

I work in manufacturing, and our business globally slowed down late in 2012 and has not begun to pick back up. It is definitely well above our 2009 level, but somewhat stagnant. The stock market is high, but is that because interest rates and other investment options are low yield?

 

I am not trying to spread bad news, and their is value in painting a positive picture, but not if the picture prevents us from confronting our realities and making sound decisions to assure our future.

I never lost confidence.

Still spending within my limits as I always have.

I do see a lot of positives going on now. Less people out of work, more construction started. I'd say it is up!

I think it's a false confidence. I personally feel good about my situation but I don't feel good about the economy as a whole. The next economic meltdown will be on student loan defaults.

 

If a student loan default does occur, while it will not be good, I question if it will have the same degree of negative pull down on the economy. When the mortgage defaults occured, they drug down the housing market with it due to the housing market being flooded with homes people lost on default. And let's face it, what item are people so emotionally attached to that when its value comes crashing down, it has a huge affect on their consumer confidence and consumer spending? Their home. And even people who stayed on top of their mortgage saw the value of their homes going down also, in many cases, less that the balance of the mortgage. If/when the student loans defualt, I don't see it having such a huge ripple affect throughout the economy. Not saying it will not hurt the economy, just don't see it hurting nearly as bad.

I will add, while I am glad to see the economy recovering, I hope it doesn't start to recover faster than supply can keep up with causing high inflation to come back. Nothing can take the steam out of a recovery like high inflation.

At a direct household level - no. With wife facing 2nd layoff in 4 years. Even after changing career paths.

 

Other immediate factors:

 

- Gas prices. Getting below $3 would be useful.

- Housing valuation. PVA saved me the trouble of 'protesting' using an appraisal with a much lower assessment this year.

 

On the positive side -the 19-year old did land a full time summer job.

 

At a more macro level things may be 'getting better' but they are not taking off. Here are are some scary stats:

 

Activist Post: 40 Statistics About The Fall Of The U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

 

 

But if you want to look beyond the stock market and housing market for trends in the first quarter look at companies REVENUES. Not their earning or profit - revenue. Revenue is what drives JOBS. If revenue is down, jobs are down. Its a double whammy - obviously less revenue means less sales and less people needed in general. But also companies - knowing they will get hammered for missing revenue estimates then focus on earnings (profits) to offset the bad 'revenue news'. So they do cost cutting to increase earnings/profits. 'Cost cutting' usually means layoffs or reduced hours.

 

Some high profile names Q1 misses on revenue:

 

Target - "Sales rose 1 percent to $16.7 billion, trailing the $16.8 billion average estimate." Link

Dell - Revenue down 2% YTY for Q1. Link

Intel - "Intel's semiconductor sales in the first quarter were US$11.56 billion, a 3 percent drop from the $11.87 billion in the first quarter of 2012." Link

HP (note - HP's fiscal is offset from calendar): "Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HPQ) fiscal second-quarter earnings slipped 32% as the technology company recorded revenue declines across its segments, though core profits beat its expectations." (Classic headlining profits over revenue drop!). Link

IBM - "Total revenues of $23.4 billion were also below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $24.5 billion." Note that IBM revenue was $24.7B for Q1 2012. So revenue missed estimate and was over $1B lower in Q1 2013 than Q1 2012.

Link

Sears - "Revenue fell 9 percent to $8.45 billion, missing the $8.74 billion forecast by Thomson Reuters analysts." Link

Walmart - "Sales rose 1 percent to $113.43 billion. That figure excludes Sam's Club membership fees. The results fell short of Wall Street expectations for earnings of $1.15 per share on (estimated - my add) revenue of $115.78 billion. Wal-Mart reported a 1.4 percent drop in revenue at stores open at least a year at its namesake business, its first drop in a year and a half." Though sales were up (barely) they missed target by over $2B! Link

GM - "Net revenue in the first quarter of 2013 was $36.9 billion, compared to $37.8 billion in the first quarter of 2012." Down YTY by almost a $1B. Link

 

Now some companies did have a positive revenue 1Q - Ford is one. And there are good news stories out there. But the broad 'recovery' looks meek at best.

 

And why is the market up? Because profits are up. The HP pop really caught me recently. But even with all of its lines of business being down in revenue it beat profit AND had a rosy outlook. I haven't look at the insider trading number for HP but it might be interesting to see who sold on that recent pop.

 

Lets all hope it gets better - faster. These are some fairly notable revenue misses by major icons of the economy.