As the Magic 8-Ball tells us (OK Stats Canada tells us, but it sounds like the Magic 8-Ball), indications are good that the economy may be turning around. Yesterday stats Canada announced that the Leading Indicators jumped 1.3% , which suggests things may be turning around slowly in our economy.
The index seems a bit of a mish-mash of a lot of information, but as usual if you read closer you’ll see that there are some very interesting tid-bits of information in there.
- The housing index is up 2.5% from last month, which means it is costing more to buy a house, so someone must be able to buy them if the prices are going up.
- The TSX S&P is up 2.0% from last month and if you look back to June 2009, it is up 18% over that period, which is a big number (but it did have a long way to go as well, after the great drop of ’08)
Stocks and Houses
So two areas of “investment” are up a fair amount which is good, and the questions now are, will this last? We shall see is the only answer, but with stocks returning to pre-crash valuations in some areas (some will never come back folks, remember that), is it safe again? Can’t tell, and we’ll only really know looking back in a few years whether this was the start of the recovery or a “suckers rally”.
Given I bought my house a long time ago, fluctuations in it’s value mean little to me, as I don’t plan on refinancing it.
Christmas Laziness and Cheer
I am planning on doing a Top 10 postings for the Christmas/New Year stretch (given I may or may not be around), so if you have any suggestions for this kind of a list (top 10 for this year), please leave a comment with a title or story you may have particularly liked (written by me, that is).
LOL… yep, gotta love the non-committal aspects… No politician wants that clip played back around election time if they were wrong… I’m sure they’ve got some private ones prepared in the back rooms.