Your Blogroll of Affirmative Prognosticators for 2009 - Because Everyone Else has you Bummin'

Would you like affirming news on the US Economy from some other folks other than yours truly? Here’s your list. Because I truly do wish you all the success in 2009.

10. Jeff Krogh, Senior Vice President of Stifel Nicolaus, believes that Q4 2008 will be the worst quarter of this recession. Krogh predicts that things will improve soon after having bottomed out in this December quarter.

9. David Sterman, RealMoney Contributor at TheStreet.com predicts, “The Obama stimulus plan will help to create positive employment numbers in the second half of 2009.”

8. On Yahoo biz, Sterman also proports, “The next bull market begins. By the end of 2009, investors flock to small caps, as they have done near the end of previous downturns.”

7. David Hallerman, Senior Analyst at eMarketer, asserts that “Video Ad spending will rise by 45% to reach $850 million. And Search marketing spending will grow by 14.9% in 2009, to $12.3 billion.

6. Kirk Shinkle at the The Ticker on usnews.com prognosticates that, “Global imbalances will improve markedly." The long-awaited correction of the gaping global imbalances is happening with a vengeance. The U.S. current-account deficit, which was $731 billion in 2007 and likely to come in at $660 billion this year, will plummet to $282 billion in 2009.

5. Walter Derzko of “Smart Economy”, observes that “Innovation is not just alive and well, but thriving. Opportunity-savvy entrepreneurs will launch brand-new-to-the-world, industry-defining businesses in 2009-2010, despite all the gloom and doom…”

4. MLive.com reports that at the 56th annual Economic Outlook Conference, economists Joan Crary, Stanley Sedo and Janet Wolfe predict that US Government “fiscal policies put into place to address the current economic crisis will be successful.”

3. David Bianco, a strategist over at UBS, thinks the S&P 500 will end 2009 at 1,300 points -- up 55%

2. Daryl Montgomery from the New York Investment Meet-up Group reports, “We are actually highly optimistic about the prospects for profitable investing in 2009. You make the most money by buying assets when they are inexpensive and next year’s economy is going to lead to lots of opportunity…”

1. And if you are on "Main St","Wall St", or driving on any US street, TheBostonChannel reports that Joe Petrowski, CEO of Gulf Oil, is boldly predicting pump prices falling to $1 a gallon in early 2009. "The oil market is a manic-depressive market. It tends to overshoot. The market overshot last summer on the high side. Oil never should have gone to $147, but it did and it can." Petrowski bets the slide in oil prices will continue to fall dramatically possibly reaching $20 per barrel.

Wishing you all the best in 2009, because there is always good news somewhere, let's find some more together next year.

GNE