Too many negative diaries the last few days so it is time to point out the good because there are good signs out there.
Hopefully this evening, President Obama will provide a positive message further encouraging the good news that is out there.
My morning started out with the FTSE breaking yesterdays close followed by only a minor drop;
Then we have an assortment of positive indicators from MarketWatch;
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The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators has risen for two months in a row.
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Producer prices have increased for two straight months.
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Consumer prices rose in January -- the first monthly gain in six months.
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The Baltic Dry Index, which measures the cost of shipping key raw materials like copper, steel and iron, has more than doubled from its recent lows.
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Existing-home sales rose in December, and participants in our weekly survey think that another rise took place in January.
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Pending home sales went up in December.
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Builders' confidence inched up this month.
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Thanks to lower interest rates, applications for both new mortgages and refinancings of existing mortgages are rising.
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Real hourly earnings rose 4.5% in December following a 3.3% increase in November.
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An index of consumer expectations rose in January.
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Retail sales shot up by 1% in January -- the first monthly rise since June.
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The decline in consumer credit moderated in the latest month.
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New orders for consumer and nonmilitary capital goods went up in January.
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The ISM index of manufacturing went up last month.
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The ISM index of services rose last month for the second month in a row.
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The money supply is soaring, a sign that there's plenty of liquidity in the economy.
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The 3-month London interbank offered rate, a measure of banks' willingness to lend to each other, has dropped to 1.2% from close to 5% a number of weeks ago.
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Other measures of the state of the financial markets, like the TED spread and the 2-year swap spread are down, as well.
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Prices of credit default swaps for banks have fallen from their peaks.
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The corporate-bond markets are thawing out, too; some $127 billion in dollar-denominated debt was issued in January, the most for any month since last May.
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Some securities on banks' books are starting to recover in value.
And Home Depot posts a fourth quarter profit, disregarding one time charges, exceeding expectatiuons. You have to get beyond the headline "Home Depot swings to $54 million loss" to realize that the loss was an accounting loss, not based on a crash of store sales.
Excluding the charges and write-offs, Home Depot would have earned 19 cents a share, down 52.5% from the prior year. Sales fell 17% to $14.6 billion, for a 13% comparable sales fall. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for a profit of 16 cents a share.
Macy's posts a $310 Million fourth quarter profit;
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Macy's Inc.
Macy's, Inc. said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter profit dropped to $310 million, or 73 cents a share, from $750 million, or $1.73, a year earlier.
And Nordstroms posted net income of $68 Million for the quarter;
The upscale Seattle-based department store reported net income of $68 million, or 31 cents a share, down from $212 million, or 92 cents a share in the same quarter last year.
Radio Shack reported fourth-quarter net income of $62 million;
RadioShack Corp. reported fourth-quarter net income of $62 million, or 50 cents a share, down from $101 million, or 77 cents, earned in the final three months of 2007.
This sure is not "Grandpa's 1931 depression."
Now go out and spread the good news because the right wing sure is not going to do it.