[troutman]

April the best month for stocks in nine years?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_194237.html

April was Wall Street's best month in nine years _ offering some of the most powerful evidence yet that maybe, just maybe, the economy is about to begin a turnaround.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index, considered the most reliable measure of the broader market, climbed 9.4 percent in April, its best performance since March 2000, the peak of the dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones industrial average shot up 7.4 percent in April, on top of a 7.7 percent gain in March.

That's more than a relief for investors _ it's a potential economic indicator, because the stock market tends to get back on its feet before the economy does. In downturns over the past 60 years, the S&P hit bottom an average of four months before a recession ended and about nine months before unemployment hit its peak.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_194313.html

some of the best economic minds in the country, who gathered on stage at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to discuss solutions to the global economic crisis. The panelists unanimously agreed on two points: this is a global crisis, and we're not through with it yet.