Confidence is soaring (or sliding) depending on what survey you choose to believe. The UMich confidence’s collapse (the biggest miss in 8 years) has been matched by more ‘baffle ’em with bullshit’ as the Conference Board beats expectations by the most in 5 months and pushes back towards 2013 highs (near the highest in over 5 years). Both the Present situation and Expectations rose notably – despite 1.4 million people losing their benefits, a lackluster holiday season for retailers, and stagnant incomes – but the Present Situation index rose to the highest since April 2008.

The two confidence indices seem relatively well correlated in their beats and misses until the last 3 months…

….read a very detailed article HERE