Clusterstock stops just short of saying that the economy has taken a second dip:
Bonds rallied while stocks, commodities, and real estate (Real Estate Investment Trusts, REITs) fell. Even emerging market equities proved themselves to be more volatile than U.S. stocks (the S&P 500), falling by a larger amount as they generally are expected to.
This is pretty close to economics 101 expected asset class performance for a recession. It’s odd how this happened while the pros became more bullish on equities than they’ve been in quite some time. Just remember that economics/finance 101 isn’t always how the real world plays out.
Lets see….cash for clunkers is over. Is the first time home buyer subsidy still going? Gee, we stop the subsidy programs and people stop spending….who’d a thunk it? Of course, I noted that merely moving future purchases forward might provide a short term boost to the economy its longer term efficacy was suspect…but what the heck THE RECESSION IS OVER!!! WOOHOOO OBAMA IS GREAT!!!!