Articles About Recovery

While the American public was bailing out Wall Street, those same taxpayers saw their families’ net worth decline by nearly 40 percent. The recession took roughly 20 years of Americans’ wealth, according to government data, with middle-class families faring the worst.  According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families plummeted by 39 […]

January’s big snowstorms on the East Coast contributed to the creation of just 63,000 jobs nationally in that month.  In February, however, businesses started to hire workers. The economy added 192,000 jobs, the best showing since May of last year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.  The unemployment rate – which is politically important […]

New-home construction fell 4.3 percent in December compared with November to its lowest level in more than a year to a seasonally adjusted rate of 529,000 starts for 2010.  December saw the lowest level of new home starts since October of 2009, according to Department of Commerce statistics.  Starts ended the year 8.2 percent below […]

The United States’ 2010 GDP soared at an annualized rate of 3.2 percent, as consumer spending rose by the greatest levels in four years.   “The consumer really drove the economy in the 4th quarter,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia.  “The economy has moved beyond recovery to a […]

With the stock market ending its best December since 1987, there is hope that 2011 will see a strong Wall Street recovery.  One source of hope is the fact that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has returned to its pre-Lehman Brothers level.  It joins the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Nasdaq Composite Index and […]

Two significant threats to the economy are receding, although the recovery still has a long way to go. One of the threats was the specter of deflation – which has not occurred since the 1930s – now belied by the 0.3 percent inflation rate reported for August, and driven primarily by rising food and energy […]

Foreign banks, American private equity firms and a leading Chinese sovereign wealth fund have been investing in commercial real estate in the United States in the hope that interest rates stay low. This increasing interest from investors could be a sign that the market is experiencing some stabilization.  According to Bob Steers, co-chairman of Cohen […]

Commercial real estate will begin its long-awaited recovery in late 2011 or 2012, according to the fourth-quarter Korpacz Real Estate Investor Survey, which questioned more than 100 real estate investors, including REITs, pension funds, private equity firms and insurance and mortgage companies.  Confirmation is provided by a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey, which notes that Washington policymakers are […]

The recent upward trend of the stock market has led investment experts to believe that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon pass the 10,000 mark  for the first time in a year. Craig Peckham, equity trading strategist at Jeffries & Co., and Michael Cuggino, president and portfolio manager at Permanent Portfolio Funds, believe it […]

Eleven of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks showed signs of a stabilizing or improving economy during July and August, according to the Fed’s latest Beige Book report.  The Beige Book’s anecdotal evidence found that the nation’s worst recession in 70 years is coming to an end.  The Fed expects the economy to grow by […]