4 Ways to Tell When a
Real Recovery Has Begun

June 16, 2009 01:53 PM ET

You could conclude just about anything from the daily cavalcade of economic statistics. Some suggest an imminent recovery. Others seem to foretell years of gloom. The bent of the expert interpreting the latest news—bull, bear, Obama-basher, Wall Street-hater—has as much to do with the outlook as the numbers themselves.

For the foreseeable future, there will be an aggressive hunt for two economic recoveries. One is the technical improvement in economic indicators that signals the economy is growing again. That's the one economists care about, which is why they scour the numbers on retail sales, business inventories, purchasing manager sentiment, subatomic inflation, the mood in Shanghai, and anything else that could help pinpoint the exact inflection point for a turnaround.

The other recovery, the one that most consumers are waiting for, is the one in which companies stop firing and start hiring, banks return to normal lending, and families stop worrying about jobs and income. And that turnaround—the consumer recovery—is likely to take much longer to materialize than the technical recovery. learn more at