Of course, if it doesn’t, you’ll probably forget you read it here anyway. Anyway, executives at a disparate combination of industries that I’ve been watching lately (Colliers International, Fluor and RadioShack) have all expressed varying degrees of optimism that things might turn around by year’s end, or have turned around, as far as they’re concerned. Jump for more.
The Colliers commercial real estate firm comes off most optimistic of the bunch in a research eBlast they sent me yesterday:
With the onslaught of negative news concerning the economy, many are tempted to think the recession will never end. This is of course not the case as this recession will indeed end, and almost certainly by year-end. While the recovery will be slow and uneven, the economy will begin to expand once again after one of the most severe downturns since the Great Depression. The intent of this “Analysis” is to provide readers with two likely scenarios for the US office leasing market for the balance of 2009 and into 2010, both of which show considerable challenges but also the seeds of recovery.
In a fourth-quarter teleconference on Tuesday, RadioShack CEO Julian Day was more guarded, but still couldn’t completely hide his hope:
The negative sales trends we experienced in parts of the fourth quarter [of 2008]did not carry over into the first quarter of 2009.
And then there’s construction firm Fluor, whose business activity has slowed down a bit, but whose net earnings jumped about 35 percent last year. Executives in their conference call Wednesday said that while financing is an issue for some projects, they’ve got plenty of jobs on backlog to keep them busy, and see new opportunities building windmill farms and constructing mines.
Don’t make me dust off that Magic 8 Ball to check this prediction. I fear what it might tell me.
