Confidence Fades, Markets Rally, Doubts Persist

It should be interesting to see if/how long the market rally that began earlier today lasts. Based on a cursory review of the available related financial news, it seems that more pundits are urging caution than embracing rising asset prices spurred by the latest agreement in Europe, suggesting that, like Lucy pulling the football out from beneath Charlie Brown’s oncoming foot, leaders have disappointed markets many times before and, based on the sketchy details of their latest deal to cure what ails them - their 19th “summit” since the crisis began two-and-a-half years ago - this time may not be any different.

Based on the latest reading on the Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index released this morning, that’s the conclusion that Americans seem to have already come to.

Assurances like “We affirm our strong commitment to do what is necessary to ensure the financial stability of the euro area” would be more reassuring if we hadn’t already heard that 18 times before. Nonetheless, with only an hour or so of trading left to go, it looks like investors and traders will end the week a little better off than where they began it.