Signs Of Life And Recovery Around The Global Marketplace - How Are Things In Your Neck Of The Woods?

The PEiR Group

There may still be a long road ahead of us as some have said, but recent developments have given rise to hope that the nation is about to emerge from the worst recession since World War II.

“Recession is over, economy is recovering – let’s look forward and stop the backward-looking focus,” John E. Silvia, the Wells Fargo chief economist, wrote Tuesday.

“We’ve found the bottom,” says Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic, a data firm monitoring housing starts and sales.

Perhaps, we’re all watching and hoping, that’s for sure. But other indicators have arisen to indicate a return to more prosperous times for America and the world.

In China, that country’s largest state-owned construction company pocketed $7.3 billion from investors after an initial public offering of it shares attracted widespread attention. Although the slowdown in the country’s growth caused China State Construction Engineering Corp’s profits to fall last year, its IPO is by far the largest in China this year and the world’s biggest since Visa raised $19 billion in its IPO 16 months ago.

In Europe, nearly a quarter of wide-format printers in the industry today expect business to improve during the remainder of this year with 14 percent already reporting signs of recovery, a recent survey indicates.

In a survey of 400 European printers, 23 percent are pinning hopes on an upturn in the latter part of this year, 25.6 percent expect a change of fortunes to emerge in early 2010. A similar figure anticipates an upturn later, in the second half of the year and less than 12 percent expect conditions to last into 2011.

Fully 83 percent of the survey's respondents say their companies are well-positioned to “take advantage” of market conditions when it rebounds.

And there you have it. Hopefully, we’ll all be on our way soon.