Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me *

But maybe this time - finally - I see it right.
Private Sector employment continues a slow trend up. From October to December, the index of consumer confidence was up 57.7%. For every single month over the past two years, activity in the service sector has improved.
We're having strikingly different conversations with colleagues, clients and other business owners in recent months, which contrast with the prior four years when a good stretch was best described to us by one CEO as things being "less bad". During those four years most businesses suffered a profit and revenue dive. Some went into a tail spin never to recover.
However, those who survived "bouncing along the bottom" are now coming back. In contrast to the years of executive hand wringing, recent weeks have brought "we're seeing significant improvement", "we're operating at capacity", and "the last quarter was our best in almost four years". These comments are no longer the exception. Looking at additional numbers may help explain. We've had a month where housing starts were their highest in 18 months. The trade deficit looks better. And when inventories are too low, as they are now, they will be rebuilt - affecting employment, material purchases, and the consequent activity that rebuilding will require.
We don't know whether this uptick is a trend or an event. Vigilance and prudence remain essential. But let's not ignore the same data sources, now indicating a positive direction, which we readily embraced when they were relentlessly negative. And let's not minimize the renewed optimism of the same credible colleagues, clients and business owners on whom we relied when they previously told us how tough things were.
With definitive testimony, trends and fact in hand, what looks like up, may finally be up.
* Richard George Farina, 1966