Kneale: The Great Recession is Over!

Dennis Kneale
CNBC Media &
Technology Editor

I said it on our 8 o’clock show on Thursday and Friday and now I’ll put it in writing: This horrible Great Recession is over, right here and right now.

A spate of economic metrics supports this daunting prediction. We'll update this information and topspin it on CNBC Reports tonight at 8 p.m. I'll get to those numbers in a moment.

The more important factor, though, is how we FEEL.

I've said it before, let's put it on T-shirts: Capitalism is optimism monetized. As I put it in my "Parting Shot" on CNBC Reports on Friday night, hope is the magical elixir of capitalism.

And even here, the latest consumer sentiment numbers, out on Friday from the vaunted University of Michigan monthly survey, show that hope is on the rise.

Once we start to feel the risk of layoffs has passed, we will start spending more—consumers and companies alike.  I reject the doomsday proclamations that the consumer psyche has been altered permanently; we want what we want.

That's not to say the next boom is here as yet. Growth will be poky and uneven at first. And plenty of obstacles loom, especially in the anti-business, tax-happy policy push of President Obama and his round-'em-up posse.

But if you aren't careful, the aftershocks and recriminations of this terrible tumble will cloud your vision of the rebound underway.

Skim these hopeful numbers:

• Leading economic indicators have been up the past couple of reports; durable goods orders are up three of the past four months; businesses’ capital-goods orders just rose 4.8 percent, the largest increase in five years.
• The four major indexes for stocks, which often rise to presage an economic rebound, are up 30 percent to 50 percent since early March.
• At the end of last week stocks hit the Golden Cross—the 50-day moving average price of the S&P 500 crossed over and above the 200-day average. That often portends a 20% rise in stock prices over the ensuing year.
• The Vix fear index on stock-price volatility is down over 40 percent in three months, falling to where it was just before the collapse of Lehman Brothers that set off a worldwide financial panic last fall.
• On Friday personal income numbers came out, rising an encouraging 1.8 percent (albeit largely because of a $250 Social Security onetime boost to millions). Personal savings AND consumer spending are up a bit, too.

To me, the compelling conclusion is inescapable—the worst is over. The risk of global financial collapse has been isolated and neutralized, and the rebuilding has begun. Dow 10000 here we come.

Remember you heard it here first.

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