The Markets

 

Behind the dark clouds of volatile markets there appears to be a silver lining. That may be hard to believe when so many are focused on whether economic weakness is due to bad weather or, well, economic weakness, but here are a few of the signs that things may take a turn for the better:

Of course, positive prospects don’t mean everything is coming up roses (especially not in this weather). Consider one of the effects of stock buybacks which is there is a lot less stock in our stock markets than there used to be. As Barron’s pointed out, “The Wilshire 5000 may have seen its list of components shrink by half since 1998, but its total market cap has doubled from $11.7 trillion to $22.5 trillion in that span. Unless you’re a government statistician, you just might call that inflation.” Oh! Inflation. That’s something we may need to think more about soon.