8. April 2009 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

U.S. companies, after months of watching unsold goods mount in stores and warehouses, are reducing inventories enough to offer hope they can soon ramp up production and give the U.S. economy a needed boost.

According to the Wall Street Journal, (subscription) a sprinkling of companies point to tentative signs that consumer spending is stabilizing, or perhaps even turning up. A turnaround in demand, following the inventory declines, could prompt manufacturers to increase production enough — perhaps in the current quarter — to slow the rate of contraction in the U.S. and perhaps get the economy growing again. More good news.

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8. April 2009 by Dan Walkow, CFA, CMT.

According to the New York Fed, “Research beginning in the late 1980s documents the empirical regularity that the slope of the yield curve is a reliable predictor of future real economic activity.”

This afternoon, the New York Fed released its latest “Probability of U.S. Recession Predicted by Treasury Spread,” with data through March 2009, and the Fed’s recession probability forecast through March 2010. Read More

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