September 2010 Macro Pulse -- From Green Shoots to Thin Ice

In the spring of 2009, the markets pinned their hopes on the idea that “green shoots of recovery” were growing in the U.S. economy. For a while, those hopes seemed justified, as real GDP growth ramped up to 5 percent in 4Q2009; although anemic by the standard of prior recoveries, that rate was infinitely preferable to the 6.8 percent contraction of 4Q2008. Since 4Q2009, however, those hopes have been withering with the cooling economic climate. Now the markets are increasingly skittish about the possibility the U.S. economy may sink back into a second recession. "We're skating on thin ice,” said John Silvia, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities, “and we don't have a lot of margin for error."

The biggest patch of thin ice continues to be….

Click here to read the entire September 2010 Macro Pulse.

The Macro Pulse blog is a commentary about recent economic developments that affect the forest products industry. That commentary provides context for our 24-month forecast, which is contained in the monthly Economic Outlook newsletter available through Forest2Market. The monthly Macro Pulse newsletter summarizes and gives a convenient point of access to the previous 30 days of commentary available on this website.