Real Story: Failure to Launch

"I'm still in the soft-landing camp," Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial, tells Aaron Task on Monday's "The Real Story" podcast.

Housing and a slowing consumer are "going to temper the rate of growth [but] the economy is going to hang in, and that means less inflation and maybe make the Fed a little happier."

Hoffman foresees no recession this year and the possibility of rate cuts later in this year, which should mean a continued favorable environment for equities; PNC maintains an overweight recommendation for stocks, he says.

Looking ahead to Tuesday's CPI report, the economist forecasts a 0.2% rise in core CPI. "If we get 0.3% [with rounding], that might hurt a little bit, but if it's 0.1%, it's going to be great for the stock and bond markets," Hoffman says. "That could put a real fire to the stock market."

Task's second guest, TheStreet.com's Nat Worden, discussed the day's big corporate news: DaimlerChrysler's (DCX Quote) agreement to sell an 80% stake in its Chrysler Group unit to private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management.

The deal is the beginning of a breaking down of barriers that have kept the U.S. auto industry from a major restructuring, Worden says, offering insights on what the deal means for GM (GM Quote) and Ford (F Quote).

In the remainder of the podcast, Task reviewed the day's other deals, including:

Merck KGaA's selling its generic-drug business to Mylan Laboratories (MYL Quote) for 4.9 billion euros ($6.63 billion);