THE MAESTRO CALLED THE CHAIRMAN MONTHLY

WERE YOU AWARE THAT DURING ALAN GREENSPAN'S LAST 6 YEARS AS HEAD OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF THE U.S. HE CALLED THE FEDEX CHAIRMAN MONTHLY?

He wanted to know how shipments were going as a way to guage the health of the economy. As long as the consumer was spending the economy would hold up.

Well, if the FedEx chart is any indication of a slowing consumer, then we can clearly see the weakness in the chart above. It has broken all support and is now below the 200 DMA.

• From BusinessWeek: The Real Economic Threat: Weak Capital Spending
• And also from BusinessWeek is an article about consumers turning to credit card debt to partially offset less mortgage equity withdrawal: Borrowing Like There's No Tomorrow
• From the WSJ: Subprime Pullback May Crimp Consumer Spending
  Will it ... get harder for these consumers to buy cars, shop at the mall and dine out?