A home sold in New York City in June. The housing marking is showing tentative signs of recovery, which is one good signal among a mixed bag of mid-year economic indicators.
(Mark Lennihan / AP / File)Photos (1 of 1)
Though mixed, some signs of mid-year economic hope
By Mark Trumbull | 07.02.09
Compared to the clear, bright sparkle of Fourth of July fireworks, what’s going on in the economy these days is a lot harder to decipher.
Big banks aren’t needing new bailouts, but the stock market isn’t soaring either.
Jobs keep disappearing even as economists predict a recovery.
What’s going on?
The economy appears to be in a transitional phase. The worst of the recession may be over, but a recovery isn’t yet here. Expect more days like Thursday, where one report (factory orders) looks good, while another (jobs) comes in worse than forecasters expected.
Despite the ups and downs, many economists say some key indicators are moving in a positive direction.
Here are a few:
•The housing market is on the mend. The process will still take some time. But consider that the California Association of Realtors recently reported rising sales and rising prices for homes. Inventories of unsold homes have come far down in that hard-hit state.
•Credit markets continue to improve. Again, the healing process has a long way to go.
•The job market, while weak, is no longer as eroding at its worst pace. Of the 467,000 jobs lost in June, about 50,000 were government jobs, many of them temporary positions at the Census Bureau. “Jobless claims appear to have peaked in April,” writes Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners, an investment firm in Greenwich, Conn. He notes that the year-over-year rate of change in joblessness has held steady for three months, “behavior typically seen at a trough in the business cycle.”
Plenty of hard slogging still lies ahead.
So do, probably, more ups and downs in economic data.
Oil prices have been bouncing around as traders read the tea leaves on demand. Thursday’s weak jobs figures sent oil skidding below $67 a barrel.
On housing, a continuing onslaught of foreclosures prompted the Obama administration this week to fine-tune its “Making Home Affordable” program. Now people can qualify for help refinancing home loans even if the mortgage balance is as high as 125 percent of a home’s value — up from 105 percent previously.
That could be good news for many homeowners, but it’s also a sign of how “underwater” many still are with their mortgages.
Comments
2. a fay | 07.06.09
The unemployment rate is down slightly, sure. That’s because there aren’t as many workers left to lay off.
3. Stephanie Fischetti | 07.07.09
Probably there are a lot of underemployed people and households made up of one unemployed spouse and one employed spouse. These underemployed or unemployed people are not as likely to have drawn unemployment. I think there are plenty of people doing odd jobs and temporary jobs.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
Leave a Comment
We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. The comments feature is a forum to discuss the ideas in our stories. Constructive debate - even pointed disagreement - is welcome, but personal attacks on other commenters are not, and will not be published.
Tip: Do not write a novel. Keep it short. We will not publish lengthy comments. Come up with your own statements. This is not a place to cut and paste an email you received. If we recognize it as such, we won't post it.
Please do not post any comments that are commercial in nature or that violate copyrights.
Finally, we will not publish any comments that we regard as obscene, defamatory, or intended to incite violence.
1. gili4 | 07.06.09
I sure would like to know who those ‘economists’ are that are trying to say the economy is in the throws of recovery! What do you want to bet those supposed ‘economists’ are all Obama supporters?! As long as all levels of government continue to tax and spend; as long as government continues to stifle business by more and more regulations. and as long as government continues to force more and more freedoms from the citizenry the economy will continue to worsen until we finally are relegated to the Medival Ages and serfdom again! Only the Socialists think this Obama idiot is intelligent, but his complete stupidity shows itself daily through what he says and does.