Economic Crises By Jason P. Jones At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

The steady stream of positive economic news may indicate that the US economic crisis might be nearing the end. Less than three weeks ago we witnessed the stock market plummeting to very low levels, the unemployment rate surging to it’s highest level in recent years and the housing industry hemorrhaging even more.

The Dow Jones industrial index is at its lowest just hovering at 6,926 points. The unemployment rate has reached a 26 year high, pegging at 8.1 percent for the month of February. The unemployment rate is even expected to reach 10 percent by the end of 2009. On the housing front, First American CoreLogic, has estimated "about 8.31 million properties had negative equity at the end of 2008". These negative trends could send the foreclosure rate higher if homeowners walk away from their homes.

But now, everything seems to be reversing, if the current news and trends are to be believed, the economy might be on the recovery stage.

It all started with the Citigroup's announcement that it no longer needed government money to stay afloat and since January 2009 has been profitable. The day Citigroup announced they made a substantial profit the first two months of 2009 the Dow Jones Industrial average jumped to 7,198 points and rallied further throughout the week.

This good news was also followed by the announcement of the Commerce Department that the home and apartment construction has risen by a hefty 22.2 percent in February compared to the month of January this year 2009. This is further supported by the increase in house sales in specific
area’s of the U.S. First American CoreLogic, reported that in "Fairfield sales jumped 226% in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the same quarter in 2007 and home prices during that period fell 19% to $179,500". The increase in house sales has been attributed to the ultra cheap prices and the now very low mortgage rates. A recent survey showed that the "30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.16 percent for the week ending February 12, 2009". This is a substantial decrease to 2008's 5.72 percent.

Source: Mortgage Rates

The overwhelming optimism in the state of the economy is further supported by the declaration of the Treasury Department's Timothy Geithner to help banks clean up bad assets that are mortgage related.
The amount of bad mortgage securities the government will be absorbing could amount to as much as $1 trillion. The government won't be doing this alone as the private sector will be involved. The majority of the money will come from the government's $787 billion stimulus package. The sudden confidence in the economy is further strengthened by the new that the U.S. savings rate has increase substantially. The savings rate is placed 3.6%, up from 2.8% in November 2008. The high saving rate indicates that this stock rally is more than just a bear run as most experts believe. It seems it can be sustained as Americans becomes more savings conscious.

This announcement further pushed the stock market upward. The Dow Jones Industrial average is now at 7,775 which is its highest finish since February 13 of this year. This upbeat mode has affected other country's stock markets and forced them up too. In Europe Germany and France's indexes rose mildly by 0.4 percent each. While Asia is more enthusiastic as Japan and Hong Kong's stock market piled a whooping 20 percent for the last two weeks. Yes, it seems were back in business.

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