Stock market takes a powder on weak housing, consumer confidence

Whatever "green shoots" supposedly springing up in the economy got trampled today by worries about consumer confidence and the housing market. "Consumer confidence unexpectedly slid," Bloomberg Newsnotes, " and delinquencies on the least-risky mortgages more than doubled."

In other words, the market is telling the optimists who expect a recovery -- weak and erratic though it may be -- in the second half of the year to go take a hike.