As a way of encouragement to show the market is not all gloom...

As a way of encouragement to show the market is not all gloom and doom note the following figures reported last night...

In an earlier post I mentioned, "...Many of the larger U.S. corporations continue to come in with good earnings, meeting or exceeding analyst's expectations..."

AT&T reported earnings at 3.1 billion for the last quarter.
Lockhead reported quarter earnings up 10%
Nokia profit soared 44%

The dark side was the sale of existing homes (as against new homes) fell yet again in December to its lowest level in 25 years. WOW!!! that would hurt... Its been a horrible year for housing in the U.S.

'The new figures underscored the severity of the slump in housing, which has been battered for the past two years after enjoying a boom in which sales set records for five consecutive years.

The housing bust has sent shock waves through the entire economy as defaults have risen, resulting in multibillion-dollar loses for big financial firms whose investments in subprime mortgages have gone sour.

As reported, "Lawrence Yun, the Realtors' chief economist, said it was likely that the country has not experienced a decline in housing prices for an entire year since the Great Depression of the 1930s."'

On other economic news, the Labor Department said Thursday that the number of laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell for a fourth straight week, dropping by 1,000 to 301,000. However, a word of caution - expect layoffs to start rising in the coming weeks reflecting the economic slow down due to the subprime problem.

Is the U.S. economy still in for a recession? Many economists believe the risk is around 50-50.