Explanation

This question asks about consumer sentiment in the stock market, which is material to most of the passage, so we can examine the answer choices keeping in mind the author's main idea: namely, that individuals are irrational in their use of the CCI. These answer choices are all in the very rough area of that idea, though we know that only one will be supported by the passage. For example, "irrational in their use of the CCI" does not quite support that they "have unwarranted trust in the CB." The CB is not untrustworthy; people are using its report incorrectly. So (B) is out. Similarly, (A) describes in a fashion what the CCI reflects; but if investors were concerned with these factors, their use of the CCI would be rational. So (A) is out. (C) touches on the fact that the CCI does not reflect on individual stocks. But the fact that consumers pay attention to something that poorly reflects on individual stocks does not mean that they pay no attention to the (other) things that reflect accurately; they may also pay attention to those things. So (C) is unsupported. (D) and (E) are rather like sides of a coin; their substantial difference is only in whether consumers lag or move quickly in their use of stocks. Which is supported by the passage? We are told that the CCI is a "lagging indicator," but this does not mean the consumers themselves lag; it's a description of whether the CCI is an indicator of the past or the future. Do we have grounds to think the consumer sentiment moves swiftly? We do. We can infer from the author's suggestion that the release of the monthly report affects consumer sentiment within business hours; otherwise it would not have a "smoothing" effect to release the report outside of business hours.

The correct answer is (E).