![]()
- Who Were the Biggest Winners And Losers This Year?
- GE, Comcast Complete Deal Over NBC Universal: Source
- US May Raise Rates Before Jobs Recover: Fed's Plosser
- Cramer: Watch Tech Stocks Wednesday
- Stocks Likely Don't Need Santa to Keep Rally Going
- Larry Kudlow's Open Letter to Tiger Woods
- Super Fantasy Christmas Gifts of 2009
- AIG Slashes US Debt Under Deal With New York Fed
- Seamstress Fined $5.7 Million for Insider Trading
- 8 Stocks to Gain on Obama's Afghan Plan: Analysts
- BofA On Proposed Changes In The Housing Bailout Program
- The Future of The Media Landscape
- November Auto Sales Muddle Along
- Busch: What Obama Won't Say Tonight
- Stick with Equities—Avoid Emerging Markets: Laszlo Birinyi
- Pfizer Chomps On A Carrot
- Predictions 2010: Technology
- Predictions 2010: Consumers
MOST SHARED
- GE, Comcast Complete Deal Over NBC Universal: Source
- Keeping America Great
- GM Removes CEO Henderson; Whitacre Will Be Interim Chief
- December To Remember?
- US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
- Oil Tomorrow
- Is Australia Moving Too Quickly in Hiking Rates?
- Predictions 2010: Technology
- Trading 2010: Gadgets
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.
- Will the Fed raise rates? Will the dollar continue its slide? CNBC experts weigh in on the year ahead.
- Goldman Sachs has forbidden employees from gathering in private holiday parties of 12 or more.
- Do you have what it takes to run your own business? Ask yourself these questions.
- Heavily armed pirates in Somalia have set up a sort of stock exhange to fund their hijackings.
- Since its launch in 1998, Google has become a primary force on the Internet. How much do you know about the company?
- A famed author has written all his work on an old typewriter that is now up for auction. The NYT reports.











