No Stopping of This Rebound

Similarly to the previous quarter, this time around the earnings season had a great start.   Bellwethers Alcoa, Intel, and JP Morgan all exceeded expectation by a wide margin.  Take Intel, for example: not only profits were better than expected, but revenues as well.  This is quite important as many analysts were concerned that earnings were driven by cost cutting only.  Now we are seeing evidence that sales are growing as well.

In related news, retail sales improved also, as discussed in this article.  Consumer spending (along with high unemployment), have been dark spots in this recovery for quite some time.   Now, good news on consumer demand will greatly help to boost already increased confidence.