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player ready...1. Consumer confidence sinks; ‘new dawn’ ahead
As Americans contemplate mountainous mortgage and credit card debts, consumer confidence has deteriorated. Another tally from the Conference Board arrives Tuesday. Chicago economist Diane Swonk says a bleak attitude by consumers is understandable, “given the havoc that the housing market bust and higher gas prices have wreaked on their personal balance sheets.” But Swonk, of Mesirow Financial, is telling clients, “We are close to a new dawn, and are all but assured a better second half” of 2008.
2. Producer prices in spotlight after CPI leap
An unexpected 0.4 percent leap in the consumer price index last month has economists on the alert for Tuesday’s producer price index. Economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics said after last week’s inflation report that “we remain of the view that a sustained period of soft demand will bring core inflation down, as it always does.”
3. Fuel prices blasted by refinery explosion
No sooner were motorists congratulating themselves on gasoline falling below $3 a gallon than an explosion at a Texas refinery helped send crude oil above $100 a barrel. So the question is whether fuel pumps will shortly be demanding $3.50 a gallon. Even at a price near $3, motor fuel is running 75 cents a gallon more than it was a year ago.
4. 4th-quarter economic growth to be revised
The tepid rate of economic growth gets a fresh examination Thursday, with a revision of fourth-quarter gross domestic product. It could show a mild advance beyond the paltry 0.6 percent rate reported last month. The National Association of Business Economists says current growth has fallen to a subpar 0.4 percent, adding, “Growth in the second half will pick up significantly, to 2.8 percent.”
5. Investors calm in light of dim corporate profits
Investors in the stock market have remained remarkably calm, given a drop of 20.7 percent in the most recent quarter’s corporate profits. Thomson Financial said that was how far earnings sank as it took the pulse of 86 percent of the companies in Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
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