Stanley Fischer warns of low interest rates

Stanley Fischer, the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve warned of the danger of having low interest rates on Monday, saying they can lead to longer, deeper recessions and can make the economy more vulnerable. He said they can be dangerous to financial stability, though there is no evidence of that as of now. He also said the central bank has limited power when it comes to fighting recessions because they do not control all of the factors leading to it.  This contrasted with Janet Yellen's remark on friday saying that the Fed may want to run a "high pressure economy" that has low interest rates. Fischer noted that technology and demographics (an aging population) are contributing to the low rates, as well as weak foreign growth and weak investment.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/17/feds-fischer-warns-of-the-dangers-of-low-rates.html

Consumer confidence for October drops below estimate.

The Consumer Confidence Index dropped to 98.6 in October from 104.1 in September, which was much lower than the estimated 101.5.  The survey in question measures confidence toward business conditions, personal finances, short-term outlook, and jobs. People who described business conditions as "good" decreased more than 2 percent to 26.2%.  The people describing them as "bad" increased almost 2 percent to 17.7%. Furthermore, people who described jobs as "plentiful" decreased from 27.6% to 24.3%.  The Present Situation Index also decreased from 127.9 to 120.6 along with the Expectations Index, which declined from 87.2 to 83.9.  This shows that not only the job market is in decline, but the public opinion of the job market is declining as well for reasons including inflation, wages, job conditions, taxes, and technology performing tasks that at one time required human labor.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/25/consumer-confidence-report-for-october-2016.html