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US Economic Confidence Best In A Year–Gallup

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Economic confidence in the US is the best it has been in a year, according to new data from Gallup. The data meshes with improved employment, and a general improvement in consumer confidence. The only part of the economy that appears to still lag significantly is housing, and that anchor is no longer the prevailing weight

Gallup reports

U.S. economic confidence is at -20 for the week ending Feb. 12, improved from -25 the prior week and the best since the -18 reading in mid-February 2011.

And

The pronounced increase in economic confidence so far in 2012 is largely driven by a sharp increase in consumers’ feelings about the U.S. economy’s future direction. The percentage of Americans saying the economy is “getting better” increased to 42% last week, while the percentage saying it is “getting worse” fell to 54%. Both of these measures are at their best levels since the 43% “getting better” and 52% “getting worse” of the week ending Feb. 13, 2011. In a separate question, consumers’ “poor” ratings of the economy, now at 41%, are at their lowest level in a year.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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