These are low consumer confidence numbers, more than likely affected by the hurricanes and high prices of energy.

The whole story this week has been about boosting and maintaining confidence.

The whole story this week was about maintaining and improving confidence ? from the Fed and from Wall Street corporations. There's an implicit belief that we have seen a good deal of the worst and Wall Street is still being ultra cautious.

In contrast to recent consumer confidence surveys, Canadians seem to show some strong resilience toward investing, even amid rising energy prices and energy-related impacts on equity markets in the past month.

A lot hinges on the numbers. If they're good, the market rallies. If we get any suspicious numbers, or more accounting-related stories coming into the fray, we're looking at lower prices again. It's a time of caution and some confusion.

Profit taking will be key words today (Thursday) and over the next couple of weeks. The Fed's rate cut yesterday bodes well for the longer term but near term it is an excuse to take profits. Cisco's story is another excuse to take profits in technology.