Unemployment

Consumer confidence dropped to the seven's month low while the consumer spending has hit ten months high. I was always under impression that consumers supposed to spend less when they are less confident, and they usually spend more when they more confident.

I would say that overall we have good economic reports. Almost all current bad economic data (excluding unemployment) are narrowed to the point that they are actually positive and are better than before, yet the press tells us that investors would be happier if economic reports would be better. So far, we do not see any points to the dramatic bankruptcies of stock market giants which suggest that overall stock market is quite healthy.

Unemployment is an another story. With growing technology it is obvious that on many working places functions and procedures previously performed by humans are now performed by robots and computers. 2008 recession has pushed many companies to lay off employees and many of these companies have found that they could achieve the same productivity with less human resources. Keep in min that company will always prefer to have more robotus and computerized technologies which means less expenses, less trouble with unions, etc. Because of that, we should expect to see unemployment at the same level for a while (on mine opinion). The public companies and stock market will be "ok" with it.