Many of those people losing jobs are due to attrition, and most others are finding new jobs quickly. When asked about the future of the market Bernardi said, Ninety percent of the time the market experiences an upward move after a twelve month period of declining prices. He predicted that the indexes would be flat in 2001, and that visibility is a lot better for corporate earnings in 2002. Say what you want about the so called depressed consumer, the fact is that households are still buying the biggest-ticket item of them all, homes, said Joel Naroff, President of Naroff Economic Advisers. Given this data the Federal Reserve may not continue its sudden interest rate-cutting trend much longer.
Consumer spending makes up two-thirds of gross domestic product.
A reality check for investors may come from the new Fortune 500 list. The biggest news is that Exxon Mobil now tops the list. However, even more interesting are the industries that occupy the top slots on the list. Fuel, discount retailing, motor vehicles, finance, energy, phone service, tobacco, grocery, insurance, and so on dominate this list. The top of the list is primarily occupied by value companies.