CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IS NOW AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE DECEMBER 2000…WOW THIS IS HOPE AND CHANGE!

President Obama was elected on “Hope and Change.” He left the office with relatively high approval ratings even though “His Hope and Change” did not materialize into confidence.

Donald Trump is referred to as many things, has low approval ratings, but invokes incredibly high consumer optimism. A rough analogy is that Trump is the inverse of Obama.

Consumer Confidence surged last month, greatly exceeding all estimates, and is now at the highest level since December 2000. The “Present conditions gauge” is the greatest since August 2001 and the “measure of consumer expectations” for the next six month is at the highest since September 2000.

Wow! Talk about great expectations and “Hope and Change!!”

President Trump has uncaged the proverbial animal spirits; animal spirits that have been caged for the last eight years, the result of regulatory and tax over reach of the administrative state.

I am not dismayed by the defeat of the repeal of Obamacare. The “Establishment” has declared Trump dead 2,914 times and he has come back.

I think the Republicans will coalesce around tax and regulatory reform, for this is what the electorate — as evidenced by the confidence data — is demanding.

Against this backdrop, I believe the surprising aspect of 2017 will be growth over 3%, the first such year of annual growth of over 3% in 10 years, a record that eclipsed the previous record of 4 years from 1930-1934. Radical thought? No, if the animal spirits have been uncaged as the data suggest.

The advance in the market was led by energy and the financials, two sectors that were beaten down in recent sessions. Both sectors represent considerable value and will be a direct beneficiary if growth exceeds 3%.

Oil was also aided by a disruption in deliveries from a major Libyan pipeline; daily deliveries for the beleaguered nation are now under 550,000 versus 750,000-800,000. It is not known how long this pipeline with be off line.

What will happen today?

Last night the foreign markets were mixed. London was down 0.37%, Paris was up 0.09% and Frankfurt was up 0.46%. China was down 0.36%, Japan was up 0.08% and Hang Sang was up 0.19%.