Is today the worst day of the recession? A lot of people seem to think so.
I’ll get into that in a moment, in an otherwise light trading day for technology stocks. I think we’re seeing a run out of tech this week and into more stable companies, especially in the consumer staples marketplace.
Watching CNBC this morning I saw Grant Tinker, global portfolio manager at Axa Framlington Gemini, talking about the flight to stability. "Buy great companies at fair prices, instead of fair companies at great prices," Tinker said. He thinks that the U.S. 'nifty fifty' is a good place to invest, with household names like Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart, Colgate-Palmolive, and McDonald's. It’s all about protecting your money from further losses. Said Tinker; “They won't be the leaders in a bear-market rally, but they will be the leaders in a new bull market.”
Back to the recession. With 533,000 jobs lost in the past month, CNBC was once again the place to be – if you want to get a grip on what the horrific jobs number means to the economy. Strangely, the market seemed pretty passive about the jobs number, only off about 100 points in mid-day trading. Most experts on CNBC seem to think that the number represented the bottom of the recession, with some calling it the worst day of the recession, adding that we can only go up from here.
• “This is history,” says economist Ram Bhagavatula. “December payrolls …