One good indicator of the recession being over is the end of job losses. It's not a perfect measure, but if you only have room in your brain for one measure, then this is it. And July was still of a month of decline. I've been tempted to proclaim the recession over for the last few weeks. It's getting real close, but I couldn't quite pull the trigger. Now I think I'll wait another month until we get August data. But it looks very likely that, when all is said and done, July or August will turn out to be the very bottom of the recession. (But note that the economy turning up is not the same as the economy recovering all lost ground. That's still a year away once we reach bottom.)
Yesterday in Nashville (I was there speaking to the Commercial Finance Association) I heard an interesting presentation by Gary Green of Morgan Keenan, who made a strong case that stocks are headed up. One quote he cited stuck with me: J.P. Morgan said,