Since they both reflect prevailing social mood, the stock market and consumer confidence move together. Today’s CC figure (about as high as last summer), is another sign that the investing public’s opinion of our economic prospects is overly optimistic:

If this were a stock chart of a company with horrible fundamentals (a prospective short), I would wait a bit longer to see if it kissed the 2002-2003 bottom before going heavily short, though I might start to establish a position at these levels.

What is striking about this 9-year view is how closely CC tracks the stock market, and how much more lackluster the mood was in the dead-cat bounce from 2003-2007 than the true secular peak in the late 1990s to 2000.