It seems like every day when the financial press talks of our current financial position it ends in a talk of a hopeful future. Hope seems to have defined the current outlook on the economy.
Weekly unemployment claims have stayed in a relatively stable plus or minus 10% 450,000 for the past 6 months, but every week the claims take a tick down the market views it as a sign of the road to recovery.
Real Estate has continued to weaken over the past 6 months, but the markets seems to discount the negative news and applaud any ray of hope. Seems like if Wall Street more drives down real main street America roads they would notice their more houses for sale today than 6 moths ago. Its all about supply verse demand.
The stock market has managed to push above 10,000 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average with considerably less volume than in years past. Outflows on mutual funds have exceeded inflows. It is a well understood indicator of the health of a market that volume determines follow through. The Bulls appear to feeding on the Bears, since the lambs have all gone away.
Just these three above examples (which their are many more) highlight the signs of a hopeful economy. Hope is a self defense mechanism that tries to protects us from the horrible truth. It is what keeps an average person going when they are given a 10% chance to live. The fact is that if we are given only a 10% chance to win, we really have a 90% chance to lose. Casinos have built empires off of a 1% edge. Hope is what keeps the average person gambling.
