January Leading Indicators Up; Recession's Intensity To Ease

Source: MARKETWATCH

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Economic weakness will continue through this year, though the recession's intensity could ease over the next few months, the Conference Board said Thursday.

For the second consecutive month, the index of leading economic indicators rose, gaining 0.4% in January, following a downwardly revised 0.2% in December.

"The second half of 2009 may see a period of anemic growth," said Ken Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board. "In fact, a return to robust growth may not occur until well into 2010, even if the long climb starts a few months from now."

The recent gains are due, in part, to the Federal Reserve's huge injections of cash into the money supply. Despite the rise in January, widespread weakness remains as the troubled job and housing markets continue to take their toll.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/january-leading-indicators-up-recessions/story.aspx?guid={7132E29F-A05D-4497-B1C3-571F1AF5443B}

january indicators will also be revised downward. yup, great news!!! :sarcasm:

But you're probably right.

that 's the only good news I've seen. And last year, they didn't come up before March 1.

optimism in the Obama election and change in administration. I don't know if we can expect to see February statistics continue to show an "easing" of intensity. The most obvious thing that makes me remain pessimistic is the continuing rising layoff reports.

quote from the original post - "The recent gains are due, in part, to the Federal Reserve's huge injections of cash into the money supply". Money supply added 0.54 percentage point to the January gauge and the yield curve added 0.23 percentage point. - translation = the bulk of this so called gain does not indicate productive economic activity. read the entire report, not pretty!!

I think this is real. Clients seem more relaxed about spending money.

it slowed (as it usually does) between the election and the inauguration, but it's picked up markedly since the turn of the year.

My son-in-law -- who was laid off on election day and had next to no responses to the resumes he sent out at the end of 2008 -- says he's had quite a number of interested prospects in the past month, and that those interviewing are much quicker to respond than they were in December (again, as usually happens around the holidays).

my bet is that we're nowhere near the bottom yet, and anyone saying we are is whistling past the graveyard, as the saying goes.

It's important to look out for your neighbors and help each other. We need each other to survive.

we'll have to work together instead of against one another if we're going to make it through.

People base "recession" on employment, but that's one component, and a lagging one at that. If "recession" is to be a meaningful term we need to define it in terms of a wide variety of economic activities. Otherwise it's just a synonym for high unemployment, and we already have a term for that--high unemployment.

They're talking leading indicators--even if they're likely to be inflated by the increase in the money supply. Most people don't care about leading indicators, even though they're mildly predictive (just as employment is a lagging indicator but need not increase as expected).

about things now that the stimulus has been signed, bank nationalization is being talked about openly and it seems that the worst has already happened in the market. Obviously that can change, but that's just how I feel.

big IF ( and i support nationalization ) if they do this, things will get ugly pretty fast. I dont think people understand exactly what this would mean. it is much more complicated than most believe and COULD be very harmful to the economy in the short term ( 12 to 24 months ) even so i think we should do it and put this mess behind us so we can have a real and sustained recovery instead of a 10 to 20 year roller coaster hell ride!!

n/t

The rightwingnut version of "thinking".

:eyes:

"In short, we see no real improvement here despite the rise in the headline," Shepherdson wrote.

Go toward the light...

they must be crystallizing and smokin the koolaid powder:smoke: don't smoke the koolaid