Consumer confidence jumps in April

The Conference Board's April consumer confidence report is a classic case of a data point that can be seen as either good news or bad, depending upon your disposition.

The optimists' view is that consumer confidence jumped more than 12 points in April to 39.2 from 26.9 in March. It was the monthly index's biggest gain since 2005 and the index is now at its highest level since November 2008. A Bloomberg News survey of economists had expected the index to rise to only 30.0 in April.