Daily Data Flow: Good Data Boosts Stocks; Sequestration not Hitting Market… yet; U.S. Factories Growing Well

Stocks Rise as Good Data Comes in (Bloomberg)
Today, more data came in better than expectations, this time concerning consumer confidence and manufacturing. These countered losses early in the day and resulted in an overall gain in the markets by closing time. The market mostly ignored the looming sequestration. “The sequester panic, if this was 18 months ago, we could have seen multi-hundred point swings in the market,” Kevin Divney, chief investment officer at Beaconcrest Capital Management in Boston, said. “What has happened is that the policy makers have lost credibility with the stock market.”

Sequester “Doesn’t Matter until… it Matters” (CNBC)
As the aforementioned rising market dodged the supposedly widespread panic attack centered around the dubiously dire sequestration, market experts warn investors that oblivious complacency is a dangerous attitude to maintain. “The one thing about the markets is it doesn’t matter until the day it matters. That’s just the way markets work,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Annuities. “Look at every case we’ve gone through, whether it’s subprime, the technology bubble, it doesn’t matter. The markets can keep going up, but one day it is going to matter.”

U.S. Factory Output Beats Europe and China (Reuters)
The expansion of U.S. manufacturing output last month hit its highest rate in 20 months, as Asian factories slowed their rate of growth and Europe’s fell. This suggests that the American recovery is situated better than that of other regions. “It’s doubtful we’ll see Europe emerge as a major global growth engine this year, therefore the burden is on the United States and Asia, China in particular,” said Dean Maki, chief economist at Barclays Capital in New York.