How to Spot the Recovery

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Where to look for these things? You know the media will keep us all up to date on the price of oil. But for steel and copper, spot prices are provided by The Wall Street Journal right here. As of Mar. 12, the price of copper was $1.61 per pound. On Dec. 10, it was $1.46. Not a lot of movement yet, but I'm watching. And a good chart tracking the Baltic Dry Index is here.

The Media Tipping Point

My next indicator for recovery is the Fed. By now we've figured out that the people running our government, financial institutions, and largest companies have no clue whatsoever. But they're all we've got, so you gotta love 'em, right?

The Fed has been printing a ton of money over the past few months to provide liquidity for our banks. That could really be inflationary, especially when the economy starts heating up again. The way to bring the money back into the system is to tighten things up again by raising interest rates. When I see the Fed taking this action, that's telling me things are recovering. Oh, by the way, I learned this all in freshman-year economics and my final grade was a C+, so I guess that makes me as qualified as any other expert nowadays.

But the biggest indicator to watch that will tell us a recovery is on the way?

The media. The media will have a big impact deciding when our country emerges from this recession. Go to Google Trends and search for both "Recession" and "Recovery." When the number of times "Recovery" is mentioned exceeds the number of times the word "Recession" is mentioned, that means the media has now become bored with the "Recession" and instead wants to talk about the "Recovery." The talk of our economic "Recovery" will then become the new news story. People will start feeling like there's a real "Recovery" going on. Kind of like when Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman convinced us that we were at war with Albania in Wag the Dog. People will spend! The markets will rise! Prosperity will return! My business will profit.

And maybe then I can finally afford that hair weave.

Gene Marks, CPA, is the owner of the Marks Group, which sells customer relationship, service, and financial management tools to small and midsize businesses. Marks is the author of four best-selling small business books and writes the popular "Penny Pincher's Almanac" syndicated column. He frequently speaks to business groups on penny-pinching topics. More penny-pinching advice from Marks can be found at www.quickerbetterwiser.com.