So, we have some mixed news on the state of consumers, consumer sentiment improved slightly, though it is still near historic lows, and incomes have fallen.

Since consumers are generally deleveraging, I would place more importance on the latter, case in point, is February automobile sales continuing to drop, with the replacement for the US auto fleet, fleet size divided by monthly sales, hitting 27 years.

Obviously, this is not a sustainable number, and I would expect car sales to improve at some point, though whether this in time for the Big 3 (Big 2½) is anyone’s guess.

In any case, it apperas that Japan is heading back toward a deflationary situation, with their January CPI figures showing no change.

In energy and currency, the dollar is up and oil and other commodities are down.