Plotting the Road Ahead

Economic data have generally been better than expectations so far in October, bucking what many feared would be a tough couple of months leading up to the presidential election. Most of the strength, however, has come from consumers, not businesses. What does this tell us about the environment going forward?

I've written several times in the past that investment analysts should act more like detectives and less like lawyers. A lawyer chooses a position and then seeks facts that support that position. A detective takes all the evidence and then determines who the most likely suspect is. In that spirit, here is a quick list of economic data released so far in October. It is broken down simply by month-over-month (or quarter-over-quarter) change. In this case, "positive" or "negative" is from the perspective of economic strength, not whether the number itself was positive or negative....400 more words left in this article. To read them, just click below and try Real Money FREE for 14 days.

Read the full story and get access to the Real Money Pro trading floor.

There’s no substitute for a trading floor to get great ideas, so Jim Cramer created a better one at Real Money and blogs there exclusively. We then added legendary hedge fund manager, Doug Kass, with his exclusive Daily Diary and best investing ideas. Staffed with more than 4 dozen investing pros, money managers, journalists and analysts, Real Money Pro gives you a flood of opinions, analysis and actionable trading advice found nowhere else, and allows you to interact directly with each expert.

Already a Subscriber? Please login.

Except as otherwise indicated, quotes are delayed. Quotes delayed at least 20 minutes for all exchanges. Market Data provided by Interactive Data. Company fundamental data provided by Morningstar. Earnings and ratings provided by Zacks. Mutual fund data provided by Valueline. ETF data provided by Lipper. Powered and implemented by Interactive Data Managed Solutions.

TheStreet Ratings updates stock ratings daily. However, if no rating change occurs, the data on this page does not update. The data does update after 90 days if no rating change occurs within that time period.

IDC calculates the Market Cap for the basic symbol to include common shares only. Year-to-date mutual fund returns are calculated on a monthly basis by Value Line and posted mid-month.