Now that football season is finally upon us, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Terry Bradshaw’s quote, “what's the worst thing that can happen to a quarterback? He loses his confidence.”  Nowadays, it appears that Terry Bradshaw isn’t the only one who has an opinion on confidence.  Currently there are hundreds of self-help books dedicated to the topic of "confidence" as well has hundreds of quotes from athletes, philosophers, and writers.  Even Bloomberg, which now has a page on their website dedicated to Behavioral Finance, published an article that looked at the interconnected relationship of trading, testosterone, and confidence.  Who knew, right? The recent market correction has most likely tested many traders’ confidence lately, and from the recent numbers from the monthly Consumer Confidence Survey, so too has the confidence of U.S. consumers.  Each month the Conference Board releases the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) which serves as a benchmark for gauging consumers’ attitudes towards the state of the economy based off of their savings and spending activities.

During the month of August, consumer confidence declined considerably after improving somewhat in July.  Currently the index is at 44.50 (benchmark 1985=100) after falling from its 59.2 level in July.  To put this in context, the CCI’s all time high was 144.7, which it hit in 2000, while its low was 25.3 in February 2009.  The current reading takes the indicator to a two year low, and the sudden drop was due to deterioration in both the present day and short term outlook as a result of weakness across the US economy.  As shown in the image below, we have provided you a historical picture of the CCI and the S&P 500 from 1967 to 2011.  When the CCI experienced sharp downward movements, a result of weakening consumer confidence, the market was typically falling as well. 

The recent drop in consumer confidence can be attributed to a weakening economy and job market.  In an effort to spark growth and create jobs, the current administration is looking at setting up a possible "national infrastructure bank" to foster investment in road and rail projects around the country.  We came across an article titled, "10 Companies to Rebuild America's Infrastructure" that was written back in February of this year, but very well could've been written yesterday.  It starts out by saying, "America's core infrastructure is falling apart," which is something that many of us can relate to.  Here in Richmond, Va. there has been a bridge reconstruction project going on to rebuild what is considered to be a "major transportation artery over the James River", which was originally built back in 1949.  The project began in October of last year, and is estimated to last through October of 2013 costing an estimated $51 million.  The article above sited an estimate that the nation's 5-year investment need for infrastructure was $2.2 trillion.  They then continued by highlighting the 10 companies they felt would be most intricate in the American infrastructure revival.  Listed below are some ETFs that invest in those infrastructure-related companies with significant combined weightings.