June Consumer Confidence, Home Prices

Stocks this morning are lower after a brief gain at the market open. There are 2 main pieces of News this morning, from the economic front. Like I said, this week was going to be packed with news since it's the end of the month as well as the end of the 1st half of 2009.

Consumer Confidence in June Falls
After 2 months of gains in the consumer confidence data, we have seen a drop for the month of June. Consumers attitudes towards the current economic environment dropped to 49.3 from 54.8 in May. Not a huge drop, but still something to note. The overall point here is that the economy is still very weak, but not close to as weak as it was just 4-6 months ago.

Home Prices Dropping, But at Slower Pace
Even though home prices across the nation have dropped once again from March to April, the drop was very mild. Prices on a whole, in the 20 city S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index fell just 0.6% in that given month. On the other hand, the Year over year drop is quite staggering, yet expected, at 18% from April 2008 - April 2009. "While one month's data cannot determine if a turnaround has begun, it seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions," said David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. "We are entering the seasonally strong period in the housing market, so it will take some time to determine if a recovery is really here."

Overall, things were pretty much what most economist expected. We are recovering, but the recovery will not be over night, and will be slow, with a few potholes in the road. Remember, Tomorrow starts the 3rd quarter of 2009 already, and that's when many economist, as well as myself think the recession will be officially over.

Recession of 2007 - 2009 Compared with Others

I thought it would be interesting to compare the current recession we are in to the average recession in the the last 25 years. Recession's are normal cyclical events that happen on average every 7-8 years or so. Although the media often blows things out of proportion, without recessions, we would eventually have bubbles in every market, which would eventually collapse, causing a much more severe event, called a depression.

In the last 15 years, not counting the last 2 which are part of the current recession, the average recession lasted only about 8 months. The current recession we are in right now, however has lasted over twice as long, at 17 months and running. With any recession, there is a bear market as well. The average bear market between 1983 and 2007 lasted 1 year (12 months). The current bear market that we just saw lasted 19 months. The bear market is over, at least for now, but the recession has yet to officially be declared over, and likely won't be for some time to come. Even if the recession is over, it will take about 4-5 months to determine that for a fact.

Despite the negativity of it all, there is some good news. The bear market appears over, thus we are likely at the start of a bull market run. A bull market, unlike it's evil twin brother, the Bear market lasts on average about 4 years or about 49 months. Since we are starting at such a low base, it is likely this bull market will be stronger than most. The average Bull market can show returns over 100%, with one third of that gained within the first 12 months. The lesson of this is that despite all the negative media over the last 12 months or so, things probably won't be as bad as most experts were predicting, and the great thing about it is that if you have cash on the sidelines, and a little risk to bare, now is an amazing time to invest in the market with a long term horizon.

Price of Oil - Where are Oil Prices Headed?

One of the driving forces behind any economy are it's energy prices. Pretty much every business around the globe is affected directly or indirectly by the price of oil. This is why the huge fluctuations in Oil prices we have seen over the last 2-3 years are quite turbulent for the economy in general. In the last 3 months alone we have seen the price per barrel of oil rise by about 80%. That's almost a 1% gain per day over the last 3 months. This is after we saw Oil prices fall from $150 a barrel all the way down to $35. Take a look at the chart below to see how much prices have increased since the bottom of the recession.



Will Oil Prices Hurt Our Recovery?
This is a tough question to answer. As long as prices don't come close to the highs of last year I don't personally see it being a major dagger in the heart of the recovery. We are in the Summer months, and some price increases were all but guaranteed. We are still at about half of the highs that we saw last year, so we should be thankful of that.

Where are Oil Prices Headed?
You could ask a hundred experts this question and get a hundred different answers. In my opinion, It would surprise me if we saw prices go above $100 a barrel within the next year. The world economies are still fragile, and demand is not as high as they were before the recession, nor will it be for quite some time. As long as OPEC does not cut production any further I think prices should level off in the $60-$80 range for the next 12-18 months at least.

Recession over By 2nd Half of this Year

I know my blog is always pretty optimistic about the economy, so for those of you who are pessimists, you may want to skip this post. Anyway, In past entries I had predicted a bottom to the market when it hit 6400, I predicted that unemployment will begin decreasing in early 2010, and the recession would be over by the second half of this year. Well, it looks like some of the experts agree.

Recession over?
A panel of 45 of the nations leading economists, have predicted that the 2nd Quarter of this year, the one we are in now, will still see negative economic growth. However, the last 2 quarters of this year, June onward, will see positive growth from the United States economy. What does that mean? The recession's end is in sight. A full 75% of the economists polled felt the 3rd quarter of this year would see positive GDP growth. Don't get too excited though. The majority of economists polled felt that although growth will finally make it's presence, the rate of growth will be small, and well below the average growth rate of the US economy. The growth rate however will be at about average by the time 2010 rolls around.

Job Predictions
The Panel of economist's average forecasted unemployment rate by the end of 2009 is 9.8%. This is quite a high number, but in 18 months, by the end of 2010, this rate will have dropped to 9.3% and continue falling at a faster pace thereafter for several years. Unemployment is a lagging indicator, so it will usually turn around about 6 months after the general economy. This puts the turnaround somewhere around January or February of 2010.

The Real Estate Market.
Out of the 45 panelist polled, 33 thought that the housing market will bottom in the next month or 2. The negative news is that Home prices will remain at a depressed level for at east another couple years, most experts believe.

Overall however, the economy looks to be getting stronger. The doom and gloom predictions are dying out, and a more optimistic view, like mine are taking hold. How do we know people are becoming more optimistic? The consumer confidence indicator jumped 14 points in the last month.