Consumer Confidence higher again…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- "Consumer confidence shot higher for the second month in a row in December, according to a survey from The Conference Board.  The research firm's overall confidence index, released Tuesday, jumped 9.3 points to 64.5. The increase follows a 14.3-point rise in November."After two months of considerable gains, the index is now back to levels seen last spring," said Lynn Franco, director of the group's research center."
From CNN/Money at:   http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/27/news/economy/consumer_confidence/index.htm?iid=HP_LN

That’s good news.  The consumer can help this economy, and stock market, get healthy.

The S&P 500 was unchanged today while VIX rose almost 6%. 

It’s not typical for the two quotes to diverge so much.  It may be that today’s rise in VIX is simply a reaction to the low VIX (i.e., some options buyers stepped in) or it could indicate the start of some trouble ahead.  I am not going to worry about it.  The markets are all going to suffer from low volume this week so it will be hard to trust any conclusions based on this week’s action.

The NTSM system slipped to HOLD today as the VIX indicator dropped to neutral.

I remain 100% long in the 401k due to the NTSM BUY signal of 6 October 2011 and 90% long in the trading portfolio.