As the economy turns

Over the past few weeks we've seen many indicators of a turnaround for the economy at large and the market in specific. The very wide and dynamic intraday shifts in the DJIA, for example, seem to have dissipated, and bad news doesn't cause the market to nosedive as it did earlier. Unemployment is trending downward while housing is on a rebound.

Our firm, like many, has its own barometers we monitor. Take training, for example. Until now we only conducted a few in-house classes this year, but in the next two months expect to have five: quite a dramatic change, with more inquiries coming in. This is, of course, good news for us but also indicates that firms are easing up on their training budgets, which had been in a deep freeze for a while.

Attendance for our third annual Trends in Attribution conference is on par with where it was a year ago, and we of course hope this continues if not surpasses last year's record attendance.

But we are also looking forward, as many others are, to 2010, when we expect to see even more significant changes in our economy.