The Surge In Optimism Nobody Wants To Talk About
Economy: Just before Friday's mixed-bag jobs report came out, a survey showed that manufacturers' optimism is at its highest level in decades. This is part of a broad and sustained trend that has gone largely unremarked.
Autoplay: On | OffThe National Association of Manufacturers reports that for the first three quarters of this year, an average of 90.9% of manufacturers said they were positive about their own company's outlook, the highest three-quarter reading in the survey's 20-year history, according to NAM.
By contrast, just 59.8% of manufacturers had a positive outlook in the first three quarters of last year.
This is a stunning turnaround in optimism. But it's hardly the only example.
Gallup's investor optimism index hit a 17-year high in September. And Gallup's weekly economic confidence index has been in positive territory since November 2016, after being in negative territory for all but a handful of weeks since 2008.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index dipped in September to 119.8, but was still up 20% from its 2016 average.
The University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment has averaged 96.2 so far this year, compared with 91.4 over the same time period last year. In fact, you have to go back to 2004 to find another nine-month stretch where the index was in the mid-to-high 90s.
The Small Business Optimism Index has averaged 104.9 through August, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. That's up nearly 12% from the year before. More than a quarter of small businesses say the next three months will be a "good time to expand," compared with 9% who said that a year ago.
In September, the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index marked its 12th straight month in positive territory, the first time that's happened in 12 years. The index stood at 53.4 in September. Last year it averaged 48.6. (Anything below 50 is pessimistic.)
The stock market, which is one of the best optimism indexes out there — since people are voting with their own money — has been at historic highs as well. The Dow Jones industrial average closed the week at 22,771.64. That's up 14% for the year, and 24.5% compared with a year ago.
It is important to note that all these indexes — all of them — started to rocket upward after November 2016.
What could have happened to have caused this jump in optimism, we wonder? Did Mars and Saturn enter some kind of new alignment in the astrological charts? Was there an unprecedented surge in GDP growth? A scientific breakthrough? A major peace deal?
We would submit that it had something to do with the November election results. And there's good reason to think this.
Remember, nobody expected pro-business Republican Donald Trump to win. So all those pre-election surveys showing dismal outlooks all assumed that Hillary Clinton would be in the White House today.
It was only after Trump — to everyone's shock — emerged victorious that we saw this incredible surge in optimism across the board.
Why isn't anyone talking about this? The virulent hatred of Trump among the establishment in Washington and the news media is the mostly likely explanation. No good news about him can ever get covered, it seems.
But ignoring this welcome phenomenon doesn't make it any less real, or any less important to the economic fortunes of the country.
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Here's Why Those Surveys About Tax Cuts Are Highly Misleading http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/manufacturing-optimism-is-at-record-highs-as-are-other-optimism-indexes-under-trump/
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Trump remains the most unpopular president in history at this stage of his administration.
Good it would be bad news if all those socialist left wing loons liked him.
Thankfully, being popular is not a important to this president. And somehow his base remains solid and unchanged. It might be different is the Democrap party could rise above its hate, anger, intolerance...understand why they keep losing elections, and somehow come up with a plan or a clue as to how to lead.
Of course not. All he will do is lie and say the people are behind him. A new AP poll has his disapproval at 67%. Usually the disapproval for a nine month in office president is about 35 or 40 percent.
We don't do democrap here my friend we are better than that.... Lets keep it clean...
You forgot the sarcasm tag on that...
Partly because of the media crusade against him and the silence on the facts contained in the article are a testament to that.
When it comes to all their lying negativity, I just tune it out.
"Economy: Just before Friday's mixed-bag jobs report came out, a survey showed that manufacturers' optimism is at its highest level in decades. This is part of a broad and sustained trend that has gone largely unremarked."
It's not "Optimism" by any means. I come here to take a break, because I am inundated with requests for work needing to be performed. I need a break now and again, from ALL THE WORK coming my way these days.
People are just "DOING", not that the media would report something like that. It doesn't fit an agenda.
Given the low unemployment rate, I'd expect manufacturers to be optimistic. The expected/anticipated GDP of #3-4, seemingly tied to tax reform, healthcare, trade, etc. sounds like Washington is in la-la land.
My optimism in the stock market is guarded, while enjoying the growth after falling off the cliff in 2008, anticipating a decline is perhaps a smart financial move.
Already prepared for that one..I love the "why isn't anyone talking about it" thingy.
I don't know why the alarming news is getting glossed over that tells a different story. Things like as a whole consumers are pulling back, that housing starts are down, that the auto manufacturers are going crazy trying to dump inventory on the market and at least one has announced the temporary shutdown of plants because inventory is way too high. Zero percent interest for 7 years (which is the average high/low cycle for autos) ridiculous leases, or that the same problem is arising for big ticket durable items.
Anyone seen the Home Depot and Lowes ads? Dumping appliances on the market, appliance retailers are dropping like flies, retailers themselves are dropping like flies.
You know what that means? Slowdowns at the manufacturing level, layoffs in the retail sector, and more consumers getting scared and pulling back harder or....the ones that were humming along are now up to their necks in debt and hanging by a thin line on to their job.
Anyone that could afford and wanted a car pretty much has it, and they're paying mortgage payments to keep it. The disposable income is disposed.
We're coming up on another recession and nobody is paying attention.
Those paying attention are watching the next economic disaster in the making...brick & mortar retail. While I'm no scholar in economics, listening to the President use debt reduction and the stockmarket in the same sentence has me SMH.
Being the CFO of our household
, caught unawares in the housing bubble, I'm in hyper protect the nest egg mode. I'll not be caught without market orders in place ever again!
I saw this coming in 2006, pulled out of the market and sold my home to a sucker. Called my ex-wife and warned her (before the divorce I handled all the investments) she blew me off and then lost almost $1,000,000. Took her over 5 years to get back to that level.
I've been starting to sell already, strategically but selling none the less. I do pound a few dollars in REIT's mostly multi-housing developers....when the shit gets tight, apartments fill up.
Watch what Christmas brings. Right after that is when the real bargains will be had, In the south HH Gregg is already on the way out, Sears/K-Mart will breath it's last breath soon. Malls will be the new flea markets. GAP, Penney's, and the like will either go digital or die altogether and we'll have Amazon and Walmart duking it out.
Ah, wish I'd have had your forethought! In 2013 sold our IL home to retire in TN. Although the market was recovering, figure we missed about $60K had we sold in 2006 or 2007. Fortunately TN home prices allowed us to purchase what we wanted for cash.
They already are here in NW Indiana. Dollar stores abound.
Yeah, same here in Florida. They're almost on top of each other.
That, and payday loan places....sheesh!
It was pure luck with this buyer. I lived in a Tampa neighborhood that was getting hot in the market and laughing at my new neighbor that just plunked down $240K for a house that needed work.
I bought mine in the early 90's for $59K put about $10K in materials and my own sweat equity settling on the idea that I paid cash and had no motivation to move when a real estate agent approached me and said a guy wanted to buy my house, I told him I wasn't interested in selling until he said "Willing to pay $295K and closing costs"......My bags were packed before he finished the pitch. Bought a bigger home on a lake from a desperate Russian that was going back home, he was a stone importer and the house was all this beautiful granite and Italian Marble....a 5 X 8 Italian Marble shower and a marble sunken tub and two fireplaces finished in granite! For $159K
My only mistake in my excitement is I didn't notice the 18' ceilings...that equated to $800 a month just to Air Condition the place! Added a media control room and wired the house for theater and sound as well as wireless to the reach of the property, barely got $200K to bail out....they looked up the power bills from the house.
1 year later the market crashed..
We have whole strip shopping centers up here that are still vacant from the 07 crash. One not three miles away is a 40 door complex that has only three active business's since the anchor closed up (k-mart's) that is a shopping center that as a young man I laid the mechanicals for 40 years ago.
Anyone with a brain knows it is coming..... the last time, 07, it was a few people pulling large sums of money out of the market. The same as it was in '28.
Only this time, the government will be broke, they will not be able to print the money fast enough to keep the economy moving. Everyone will cinch up and withhold everything they got hoping to hang on to a piece....
It is not going to work....