My Midyear Economic Outlook: New Free Report

The green shoots are starting to sprout.

New home sales are up, the number of vacant homes has peaked declining, new unemployment claims are declining, and corporate earnings for Q2 have been better than expected. The economy is not yet recovering, but it is stabilizing (or at least getting worse at a slower rate). The annualized second quarter decline in U.S. gross domestic product should be only -1.5%, up from the dismal contraction of -5.5% in the first quarter. (See GDP Data Likely to Herald an Upturn.)

You can read more in my 2009 Midyear Economic Outlook for Wholesale Distributors, a new report now available for free download courtesy of IBM Corporation. This report is an abbreviated and annotated version of my June webcast. Page 16 has my updated forecasts by major sector.

Here's my current forecast for the overall wholesale distribution industry. I expect a return to year-over-year growth by early 2010.


Unfortunately, employment will lag far behind this recovery despite the President's (untestable) spin about "jobs saved." Almost 15 million people are considered to be officially unemployed. It will take years to reabsorb these people back into the labor force.

P.S. Let me know what you think about the new blog design!