Economist: Recession is over

08.08.09
By James Conroy

Although those without jobs and facing mounting credit card debt might disagree, the assessment of some recent economic figures indicate that the recession is over, according to one analyst who correctly predicted that the economy was entering a down period in 2007 - one year before the official start of the recession.

In an interview with Fortune, economist Dennis Gartman said the recession is over - in fact, he says the recession ended two weeks ago.

"Too many people get too arcane and have too many arguments about why an economy goes into or comes out of a recession," he says. "Having done this for 35 years, I've fallen into using just a couple of indicators that characteristically have done a very good job."

For Gartman, those indicators include the downward trend of jobless claims along with The Conference Board ratio - which he says has been rising for the last three months, according to Fortune.

Gartman has been touting his belief that the recession was coming to an end for at least a week as he told Bloomberg radio in an interview last week that "the worst is behind us."

However, Gartman is quick to note that not all the news will be positive for the next few months, telling Fortune he anticipates that economic news will be "terrible" for the short term with unemployment continuing to rise into next year.

A number of figures which show improvement, or stabilization, in the economy might back up Gartman's claim. The July unemployment rate, which was released by the government on Friday showed a drop from 9.5 percent in June to 9.2 percent last month. Meanwhile, recent figures from the National Association of Realtors showed that existing home sales in June had increased for the third straight month, giving hope to a beleaguered housing market.

More Personal Finance Articles | News Home | Discuss in our Forum

At least one economist thinks the recession is already over