In the mean time, unemployment is still above 9%, food and commodity prices are skyrocketing, European banks are blatantly under-capitalized, the US national debt is increasing at a faster rate than ever, and oil was up an absurd amount today.
I am by no means a permanent bear (remember I Like Peeps? whatever happened to him?) I believe in the long run strength of the American economy, but we are in the middle of a junk rally fueled by monetary policy and a mass exodus from fixed income securities that were yielding obscenely low levels. People got sick of 10 year treasuries yielding less than 3% and the actions of the Fed gave most people the conviction they needed to move back into equities. There have been massive outflows from fixed income funds for 12+ straight weeks. The money had to go somewhere. I very much believe the economy will see unemployment in the 5-6% range in the next 5 years and real GDP growth, but increases in equity markets are premature. The economy will improve, we will not see hyperinflation (the Fed is more capable than most people think), and equities may even run up to October 2007 levels, but they will pull back significantly at some point. The Fed will not be afraid to remove liquidity when core PCE goes above 3-3.5%, and equities will take it in the shorts when rates start to rise. Corporations will continue to sit on high cash levels and refuse to deploy it in effective ways due to the pain everyone felt the last 3 years.
The American Consumer still has much deleveraging to do, much more so than American corporations. A large percentage of homes are underwater (20%? don't quote me on this) and despite record low mortgage rates the decline in housing prices has not stopped. Housing start numbers are poor. Consumer Confidence is all well and good, but poor employment and housing values, the primary determinants of consumer wealth and spending, are both very weak.
We are seeing such a high percentage of companies beating Wall Street consensus numbers right now because analysts are gun-shy after the crisis and corporations are leaner than they have been in the last 20-30 years. Massive restructuring programs have led to seemingly excellent earnings (and high unemployment that won't come down). When companies beat numbers and go up by 5-10% it is totally unreasonable.
Bottom Line: There are dozens of economic data points you can look at. Consumer Confidence is one of the last ones investors should look at.