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Ready to Stick a Fork in the Recession?

Yep, it’s done, according to at least one economist (though the culinary reference is just making me hungry this morning). CNN Money says that economist Dennis Gartman, who told everyone the recession started back in fall of 2007, a full year before it was officially declared to have started then, says that signs he looks for suggest that the recession ended about two weeks ago.

In fairness, his methods are not typical. He describes how he looks at jobless claims as “like the definition of pornography: I’ll know it when I see it.” But he’s been right a lot. Sure we still worry about spiking commodity prices and the possibility of inflation. But it doesn’t look like the Fed has any interest in raising interest rates at this point, which is good. But there is this nagging fear that we have gone from such low depths to such a rapid recovery in such a short time, and that makes some people nervous. And yes, at some point that stimulus is going to run the risk of over-heating the economy a little too fast.

Most market watchers I know think the stock market will hit another trough at some point in the next few months. After running up 50% since March and now showing a 6% increase for the full year, some profit-taking will probably happen.

But back to the economy – the more people say things are getting better the more people will believe it, and consumer expectations will hopefully improve (consumer confidence has still not been the greatest lately).

When I set up this blog, I vowed to myself that we might change the name at some point when things are doing better (ideas for names guys?). There’s a restaurant in Manhattan that changes its name for each season of the year. Anyway, I’m not quite ready to do that, but I actually thought about it for the first time since we launched in March. Groovy, eh?