Monday, March 16, 2009

Internatinoal Optimism on the horizon


Between March 10th & March 13th, the American stock markets all rallied very nicely. Japan's Nikkei gained substantially during the same period of time. In the US though, there seems to be a lot of finger pointing regarding what has gone wrong so far. Like it or not, the Obama Administration has presided over a 20% decline in the US markets in their first 50 days in office. The bright spot thought in our markets is banks, like Citi Group and Bank of America, are both beginning to show profits. Layoffs are still high, but they appear to have stabilized. As I write this post, the Nikkei is up 114 points and the European markets are showing strong futures.

The speed of the slowdown has affected energy availability. According to a Bloomberg report this evening, Natural Gas Drillers are idling rigs. This can only spell higher prices in the not too distant future. Both Devon Energy and Chesapeake Energy Corporations are predicting this increase. That will most likely have the effect of slowing the rebound of the economy as it occurs