The Glass is Half Full
Year
June 23.2014
Ongoing Vegas dialogue centered around a promising second half of the year considering an abnormally cold winter from the onset of 2014. The winter chills were Mother Nature’s category killer to consumer spending which is expected to rise 4-5% following the Spring/Summer thaw underway. The wages and salary stalemate are still impacting a big surge in spending and investment. Yet retail sales are 14 percent greater than the pre-recession peak. Unemployment should decline to 5-5.5% in the coming 1-2 years. Housing demands are up, and household wealth is exceeding 2007 levels. Murmurs over the U.S. economy spoke to steady steppingstones of graduated yet cautious expansion, following 1st Quarter GDP which came in below expectations at a negative -1.2%. A recession is coincidentally often defined by way of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Albeit the outlook is positive for this coming quarter as the forecast for the American economic fiber is still nurtured with conviction by analysts and pundits alike.
What This Means to You:
We can always have positive leading economic indication but note more growth will lead to rising rates and altering fluidity with lenders should their books start to weigh down. Growth is a paradigm shift that presents good and sometimes bad when investing. In good times investors can realize riches. In bad times investors can realize wealth. Uncertainty still looms.
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton
