When all you read is gloom, turn here for a much different perspective.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Past the Inflection Point

One of my favorite bloggers is the Calafia Beach Pundit. Scott Grannis was Chief Economist from 1979-2007 at Western Asset Management (Wamco) and now blogs on economics, markets, and politics from his condo overlooking Calafia Beach on the Southern California coast.

In a recent post Scott suggests, "news continues to be bad, but on the margin, the news is less bad with each passing day. We've most likely passed the inflection point, where the rate of decline starts becoming less and less. Sooner or later we could see the news actually become positive. The market is already beginning to figure this out."

Here are five recent positive posts from the CBP (along with his supporting charts)...
(click on the title for the full story with graphs)

1. Home builders' stocks bouncing
This index of the stocks of 18 leading home builders is up over 40% from its late November '08 low.

2. Industrial metals prices bouncing
The global economy is not going down a black hole.

3. End of the recession
I see lots of signs showing up that could well mark the end of the recession.

4. No shortage of money
Credit is being extended to consumers at an above-average rate, and keeps posting all-time highs.

5. Copper update
Copper prices are up over 40% from their December lows.

Add those to our list of over 101 economic positives. Thanks Scott.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks, Eldon.

    It seems likely -- as in past downturns -- that we'll find out 6-12 months after the fact that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) will have called the "official" end of the recession at some point, where we hit the bottom of the trough and had begun the upward climb to the next peak. For all we know, we may find out next year that the end of the recession was in March 2009 (just speculating). I asked Scott about this from an economist's point of view, and he replied that "the man on the street and the mainstream media likely won't figure out the recession has ended until well after the fact. Financial markets will figure it out first. Traditional indicators to look for would be a peaking in unemployment claims, a bottoming in payroll employment, a bottoming in industrial production, and a peaking in the unemployment rate."

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  2. Joe,

    No doubt we will find out about the official end long after we experience it. The markets will no doubt have it pegged by then.

    GNE

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  3. GNE:

    Can you comment on the continuing decline in home prices per the Case/Shiller Index?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank You for the post. I love to read interesting post that has knowledge to impart. I hope to read more articles from you.

    ReplyDelete

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