Dow tops 14,000

[CSpindizzy]

You are seeing things in that graph that no statistician would see.

up/down wouldn't matter if the ending point were consistently lower than the beginning point but it is not.

Wrong. I see the same thing all statistician would see. Take an average or simply draw a line on the graph and see which direction the line goes. I have already acknowledged the last month. But as I said overall going back to Dec until June.

I am seeing the same thing the Board itself sees. Would you like me to call them and verify? I'd be happy to. I know where they get their polling data.

 

[WA_Vol]

There's a link between consumer confidence and consumer spending. At least most economists believe that.

That's the only reason its ever discussed, in the context of consumer spending, durable good orders, etc.

 

[volinbham]

Wrong. I see the same thing all statistician would see. Take an average or simply draw a line on the graph and see which direction the line goes. I have already acknowledged the last month. But as I said overall going back to Dec until June.

I am seeing the same thing the Board itself sees. Would you like me to call them and verify? I'd be happy to. I know where they get their polling data.

Why would you leave out July?

It is the most reflective data point for the current level of sentiment. It also happens to be the one that covers time period.

If you want to say the trend was down between Dec and June I might agree but it seems to be an arbitrary decision to leave out the most recent data point, especially when that data point represents the period under discussion.

Further, 2 separate measures of sentiment show a July uptick thus providing some confirmatory data for the July numbers.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Well let's see. If we're going back to my original argument - before this was released... Odd how even going back to the original argument which omits July you still cannot acknowledge the trend.

And considering I have said several times I have acknowledged July but still disavowing a trend. If you look at the numbers since December, there is an overall downward movement. Trend implies over a period of time. Even if you say add in July you only get one month out of 8 where the number even comes close to the original high.

 

[CSpindizzy]

Further, 2 separate measures of sentiment show a July uptick thus providing some confirmatory data for the July numbers.

But yet looking at the other months, the numbers are not matching. One of them has questionable data. If one has questionable data and both match in July what could that mean?

 

[volinbham]

Well let's see. If we're going back to my original argument - before this was released... Odd how even going back to the original argument which omits July you still cannot acknowledge the trend.

And considering I have said several times I have acknowledged July but still disavowing a trend. If you look at the numbers since December, there is an overall downward movement. Trend implies over a period of time. Even if you say add in July you only get one month out of 8 where the number even comes close to the original high.

Okay the reason July is important is that it reflects sentiment at the time of the 14K mark. That data wasn't out yet but that doesn't mean the statement of sentiment being down is correct. It was down in June relative to May. Overall, it was lower than Dec.

A more accurate statement would be that we need to wait an see if consumer sentiment is down. Turns out it wasn't in the matching time period. You made a statement about current conditions (at the time) based on data that reflected a past condition. The fact that the data reflecting the current position wasn't available doesn't make the assessment based on past data correct.

Looking at the data, there is no discernable trend if you include July. To say it was down in mid-July is not supported either by the single month data nor the Dec.-July data since July shows a sentiment higher than the previous highs. The Spring was down from the Winter.