Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Wall Street on Wednesday celebrated Congress' vote to prevent sharp tax increases from hitting the economy and causing a recession this year, with the Dow Jones industrial average surging by 308 points. But economic gurus warned that the deal falls short of solving the nation's huge debt problems.
Even with ho-hum growth, the U.S. is starting to look like an outperformer in a world where Britain and the rest of Europe are in a double-dip recession, Japan is falling into what may be a triple-dip downturn, and some formerly robust emerging markets recently have slowed to a near-standstill.
The U.S. economy is getting a boost from the awakening of long-slumbering sectors such as housing and local government, even as previously strong sectors such as exports and business investments decline.
NEW YORK (AP) — There will be no fresh start on Wall Street today when traders and investors get back to work. The market's anxiety over shrinking credit remains, and even if stocks manage gains after weeks of volatility, no one will trust that they will stick.
"The deal is done" after a half-year of uncertainty that plagued the markets and hung over the economy in 2012, said Gary Thayer, chief macro-strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors.
While the public, the press and investors have tended to focus mainly on the economy's shortcomings — including still-high unemployment at 7.9 percent and a collapsed housing market — lately they are starting to see the glass as "half-full," rather than "half-empty," he said.
