recession

How can the stock market hit new highs at the same time unemployment is hitting new highs? Simple. The market is up because corporate earnings are up. Corporate earnings are up because companies are cutting costs. And the biggest single cost they’re cutting is their payrolls. So they let people go and, presto, their balance sheets look better and their stock prices rise.

The economy appears to be on the path to recovery. How can investors best play this? Which investments make sense?

The following article includes analysis from Robert Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theorist. For more insights from Robert Prechter, download the 75-page eBook Independent Investor eBook. It’s a compilation of some of the New York Times bestselling author’s writings that challenge conventional financial market assumptions.

In tough economic times, two companies tack very different ways:
Wal-Mart manages to increase profits and successfully meets its Target Market's needs in Mexico through its Bodega Express outlets.

To my mind, four things stood out from this week’s surfeit of summitry: China’s, albeit reluctant, embrace of multilateralism; the rising challenge from the Middle East to western and, especially, US power; Barack Obama’s effort to frame new rules for the global game; and Europe’s place on the margins of influence.

The U.S. Dollar tried to regain some strength late in the trading session following the release of the Fed’s Beige Book but major buyers were noticeably absent driving the Dollar down into the close. Record low borrowing costs are contributing to the weakness in the Dollar and the strength in higher yielding assets. Investors have been selling the Dollar to fund their appetite for risk.

From Tom Petruno's Money & Company blog in the LA Times:

Today’s rally on Wall Street -- with most market indexes up between 1% and 2% -- doesn’t tell us much, given that so many players already were gone for the long weekend. Trading was thin.

Tom Petruno's Money & Company blog in the LA Times:

California Controller John Chiang issued the state’s last IOU on Thursday, one day before Treasurer Bill Lockyer was scheduled to begin redeeming the scrip.

From Tom Petruno's Money & Company blog in the Los Angeles Times:

The wonks at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development see the global recession at an end.

The American public still believes the U.S. is in recession. Even so, people are less worried about the economy than they were in the spring, a new CNN poll shows.

For one answer to the nation's most pressing economic question -- when will the recession end? -- just take a peek inside the American man's underwear drawer.

There may be some new pairs there, judging by recent reports from retailers and analysts, and that could mean better days ahead for everyone.

Financial crisis or the Great Recession, if you still remember them, seems so far away… we are now in the best six-month stock market rally since 1933. The bulls have been running riot in the stock market, seemingly unassailable and making money effortlessly, while the bears are licking their wounds.

Teachers are holding on to dear life for their jobs, students are struggling to pay for college and the states are running out of school funding. But even with all of these economic woes, there are still people eager to teach and happy to learn.

Today President Obama is expected to reappoint Fed Chairman Bernanke to another term. This news did not come as surprise to the markets especially after Bernanke’s upbeat speech late last week regarding the economic recovery in the U.S. Traders also figured that he would stay on board especially since there is still a long road to recovery before the Fed begins to raise interest rates.

Now that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke has declared the global economy is beginning to emerge from its worst crisis in generations, the emphasis will be on whether central banks continue to work together to prevent a crisis like this from happening again or if each will take it own path to assure the path to recovery is smooth.