Dear Friend,

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Russ

Everywhere you look, you see nothing but doom and gloom in the headlines. So let’s see if we can find any good news out there...

Here’s a few bits that I found reported on Yahoo Finance over the past week:

• Vehicles sold at an 11.2 million annual pace last month, up from a 10.9 million rate in November.


• Heineken will acquire the beer business of Mexico's FEMSA in a deal worth about $7.6 billion.


• Amtrak, the U.S. long-distance passenger railroad, plans to buy more than 100 locomotives and several hundred passenger cars to upgrade its fleet.


• Ford took the 2010 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards at the Detroit auto show.


• IBM was awarded more U.S. patents than any other company for a 17th straight year, breaking its own record by receiving 4,914 patents in 2009.


• KB Home posted quarterly net earnings of $100 million, its first profit in almost three years.


• The Federal Reserve made a record profit of $46 billion in 2009.


• Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft unveiled details of a 3-year pact to spend $250 million in an effort to help simplify information technology systems.


• GM will spend as much as $1 billion updating its full-size pickup trucks.


• Amtrak will offer Wi-Fi access for free starting in March on Acela trains traveling between Boston, New York and Washington.

The chart above shows the percentage of job losses during every recession since WWII.  The top horizontal line represents where jobs were when the recession started. Each line on the chart shows the percentage of jobs lost, month by month, and how long it took to make up all the jobs lost. You can tell from the chart that normally jobs are lost quickly, but then are made up quickly as well.  It looks very similar to the letter "V" and that's what economists refer to when they talk about a "V-Shaped" recovery. But the interesting part of this chart is that you may also notice that the last two recessions (1990 and 2001) aren't shaped like a "V".  They both had a longer, gradual recovery that lasted longer, especially 2001. Over the last several weeks, both the Federal Reserve and the White House have announced that they anticipate a long recovery for jobs, and that it may take several years to get back to where we were.  (See link below.) READ FULL ARTICLE>>


Why You Should Care

The Jobs Report has been referred to as the "Rosetta Stone" of economic forecasts.  If people are working, they are making money and usually spending it, thus spurring economic growth.

Obviously, if they are not working, then guess what? 

If our Government really wanted to help get us out of the economic mess we're in, they would do better to focus on this issue than healthcare, don't you think?

If you would like to talk to me about anything discussed above, please feel free to call our office at (877) 807-SAFE (7233).

Russell K. Jalbert,CFP^®, one of the nation's leading financial professionals, has advised successful individuals in the management and distribution of their wealth for more than 35 years. Russ has discovered many alternatives to conventional investment practices. His priority is to educate people to understand they don’t have to accept risk in order to grow their money.