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Eight Reasons There Won't Be a Recession

02/28/08 - 01:21 PM EST

GM

Vincent Farrell Jr.

4. Corporate cash is at a record $1.6 trillion and is at 11% of market capitalization. There are apparently more than two bids for the General Motors GM building in New York City at better than $3 billion. There is a lot of cash around, a glut of investable funds. Banks have to overcome their trauma and start to lend, but even if they don't, the mountain of cash will find a home, which will spur growth.

5. The weak dollar is starting to spur export growth; the best guess is that GDP will be bumped by 1% per quarter because of this.

6. Developing economies are growing at better than 5%. During the last U.S. recession, the growth for this sector rate fell to 2%. The growth rate still could decline, but it hasn't yet. Developing nations account for 30% of world GDP, 2 percentage points more than the U.S. -- a big switch from just a few years ago -- and they should provide a good market for our exports.

7. Fourth-quarter GDP will be revised up from the originally reported +0.6% to +0.8%, maybe more. The second quarter is soft, but by all accounts is still positive. The massive Fed rate cuts take a while to kick in, but it seems that time has been bought. I don't think that much of the heralded tax rebates will be spent (most will be saved or used to reduce debt), but some will, which would aid the third quarter, and then the impact of the Fed cuts should be felt.

8. The overwhelming consensus is that if we are not in recession now, we soon will be. Here's hoping the consensus is wrong.

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Vincent Farrell Jr. is a principal of Scotsman Capital Management. Prior to joining Scotsman in April 2005, Farrell was chairman of Victory Capital Management of Cleveland and chairman of Victory SBSF Capital Management in New York. He was a founding partner of Spears Benzak Salomon & Farrell, which was acquired by KeyCorp in 1995. Vince held a variety of positions in his 23 years at SBSF, including chief investment officer, and he served as the portfolio manager on a number of the firm's largest client relationships. He is a regular guest on CNBC as well as other national print and broadcast media.

Prior to joining SBSF, Vince spent nine years at Smith Barney as a vice president, sales.

Vince graduated from Princeton University in 1969 and received his MBA from the Iona College Graduate School of Business in 1972.


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