With all of the negative news circling around in the media these days I thought this would be a great time to talk about potential “green shoots” that might be either currently present or be on the horizon. The first one quite possibly could be retail sales. I have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of spending that has taken place in the past year. People do tend to save a little more when times get tough, but retail sales have remained a nice surprise among all the European news.
Second, the jobless claims numbers are slowly becoming better and better. Granted, we have a long way to go with the weekly numbers coming in still around 400,000, but this was once a lot higher several months ago.
Third, the CPI numbers, which just came out this morning, are continuing to show that inflation is remaining in check. CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, which generally measures the change in the price level of consumer goods and services bought by households.
So, like today when the markets remain focused on Europe you can look back to these three potential “green shoots” for something positive to think about.
Eric Marvin- Financial Advisor in Fort Myers, FL
JPT111611-1869
