US Economy: Forever the optimist - ANZ

Analysts at ANZ points out that as the saying goes it’s tough to keep a good thing down - namely US equities which continue to anticipate a more regulatory friendly environment and increased fiscal spending to drive higher earning’s growth.

Key Quotes

“Time will tell with a lot of optimism priced in, but there being little concrete evidence yet. In the confidence stakes there will be another reading on how US consumers are going tonight. The Fed has recently pointed to high levels of business and consumer optimism as encouraging signs about the outlook for growth, but there needs to be signs this sentiment is translating into higher spending.”

“In this regard, the consumer confidence data tonight is important. Conference Board consumer confidence for March is expected to ease slightly to 113.5 vs 114.8, which was a post GFC high and would imply that consumers remain really quite confident. However, personal income and expenditure data released later in the week is expected to show consumption is not running away despite the high level of consumer confidence. Personal income and expenditure are seen at 0.4% m/m and 0.2% m/m respectively.”