Last Updated: 11/27/2007

Tuesday's bond market has opened down sharply, reversing yesterday's major rally that came during late afternoon trading. Today's economic news was weaker than expected, but has failed to stop the selling in bonds and buying in stocks. After closing down 237 points and 55 points respectively yesterday, the Dow and Nasdaq have recovered a good portion of those losses this morning. The Dow is currently up 168 points while the Nasdaq has gained 36 points. The bond market is currently down 28/32 after closing up 43/32 yesterday. But due to yesterday's rally, I am expecting to see a slight improvement in this morning's rates. However, this will likely be short-lived as bonds continue to slide. The Conference Board posted November's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) late this morning. It showed a much weaker than expected reading, indicating that consumers were much less confident about their own financial situations than was thought. The 87.3 reading that we got was well below the 91.5 that was expected and a far cry from the 95.6 of October. This was the fourth consecutive monthly decline and the lowest reading in almost two years. That is very good news for bonds because it tends to mean that consumers are less likely to spend, helping to slow economic activity. That eases inflationary concerns and raises concerns about corporate profits that in turn make bonds more attractive to investors.