When Harry Truman pleaded for a one-armed economist, it was out of exasperation from hearing from his advisors “On the one hand this might happen, but on the other hand that might happen.â€
It would seem that in one respect a lot has changed, while in another not much has changed in the 50 years since Harry left office. (Apologies in advance for the analogy to HST’s lament).
This was evidenced in a week where the Dow and S&P were both up 2.3% tacking on 360 and 42 points respectively. The 360 point DJIA move was the index’s biggest gain since December and the S&P was up 5.6% in the past nine trading days after falling 5.6% in eight trading sessions to a low on February 3. Joseph Amato was quoted in the press as saying: “Reasonably good fourth-quarter earnings [indicating] 9% growth helped propel stocks.”Â
Also helping the indexes propel themselves was the new Fed Chair Janet Yellen (who eschews putting a second syllable on her title) testimony before Congress that left little doubt that “continuity†will be the watch word going forward.
Ms. Yellen’s two key takeaways were: 1. that the Fed would carry through the tapering started by BB and 2. there was little risk that short term rates would rise any time soon.
“Continued support was provided by†(to quote the voice at the beginning and end of each PBS broadcast) the release of the EU statistics office releasing a GDP figure of 1.1% for 4Q13 which was the third straight quarter of growth. Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight, characterized this as follows: “Normally you wouldn’t be particularly thankful†for that kind of growth number. “It’s nothing to really sing from the trees about, but in light of recent events, you probably are for the euro zone.â€
The poster child of the euro crisis, Greece, turned in its version of progress as the nation’s GDP shrank by a 2.6% annual rate in the last quarter slowing from a faster falling knife rate of 3.0% in the 3rd quarter. Not quite sure if that’s Hellenic or hellish but we’ll let the pundits figure that one out.
