The economy isn't exactly blooming, but if you look closely enough, you might see a couple of green shoots:
New housing starts are stabilizing. U.S. durable goods orders are up. The Federal Reserve sees "improved" business activity in pockets across the country. Job losses seem to be slowing. The Dow Jones industrial average has been climbing, slowly but steadily, since early March.
Is this recession, the longest since World War II and perhaps the worst since the Great Depression, finally ending?
And if it does end, how soon will we know it?
The recession, many economists now agree, began in December 2007; others say it began last year. And just as there are numerous measurements to weigh when considering when a recession begins, there are lots of data to sift through on the back end, too.
One conventional metric for measuring entry into a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic retraction nationwide. The reverse is true when exiting a recession -- the country ought to show growth in its gross domestic product.
But there's more to measure than GDP growth and retraction -- if that were the only issue, the current recession would have begun in the third quarter of 2008 (when GDP shrunk 0.5 percent, followed by a larger dip in the fourth quarter), not the end of 2007.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09179/980445-28.stm?cmpid=business.xml#ixzz0K0n5baK8&D
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