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The Reuters/University of Michigan has released its report on consumer sentiment, which is not to be confused with the broader consumer confidence report from the Conference Board. This is a preliminary report for the month of November, which will be revised in two weeks. Investors also should consider that this report is based on a poll of only 500 households.

Consumer sentiment came in at a sharp reading of 84.9 for the month of October. The final reading in October was 82.6, and that was also above the 78.3 reading in September. This was a much stronger sentiment number than we have seen in quite some time.

Dow Jones was calling for a consensus reading of 83.0 and Bloomberg had a consensus target of 83.3 for the preliminary November reading. With the expectations index having risen in October, it was expected that today’s preliminary November report was going to be higher.

The S&P 500 has been fighting this morning to get back into positive territory after a two-day post-election market sell-off that took out 3.5% of the value from the index since the close before Tuesday’s election results were known. The DJIA was down 30 points right before this number, and that index was down 3.2% since the election results.

While this is only a 500 household survey, the University of Michigan report is one of the first monthly indicators that the market gets to digest.

JON C. OGG