Larry's Back on the Bandwagon

Kudlow's issues from last week have been favorably resolved with some new numbers for both manufacturing and retail sales.

"To get a true recession reading, the production index would have to fall for 4 to 6 months in a row. That’s not happening. Despite some monthly declines over the past half year, the production reading for January was 114.2 -- exactly where it was in July and September of last year. Looking inside the January index, there was a 0.3 percent increase for consumer-goods production and a 0.4 percent rise for business equipment. Both are solid numbers.

Meanwhile, the just-released January retail sales report defied the recessionistas with a better-than-expected 0.3 percent gain. Retail sales are climbing at a 2.7 percent annual rate over the past 3 months and a 3.9 percent rate over the past year."

He alos goes on to note the very strong export numbers from December, $144 billion, and also notices that the export sector is now fully responsible for 1/3 of the US economy - Wow. While the recently passed stimulus package has a lot of issues, the temporary expensing of capital investments, along with the strong Fed rate moves hold promise for a much stronger Q2.