After five days of TSX green, and NOT hitting 80, I offer the following thoughts that border on the positive

1. The stimulus package will help the economy in the short term and hopefully that will cover the time period required. Auto makers already have $4 billion and that sector employs 135,000. What will forestry workers get considering there are 300,000 of them? How about miners?

2. The stimulus will likely be infrastructure related. This means a need for Materials and labor. Obama has already said the US will be spending on infrastructure, Canada will do the same. Access roads to natural resourses such as we have should be a priority. Opening up Canada's North for power developements and resource developement means sustainble use of public money.

3. LIBOR is decreasing which means borrowing is cheaper. The CDN dollar is down nearly 20% from recent highs which gives manufacturers and exporters a 20% gain from a few months back simply from exchange rates. The US dollar has gained in value against some key currencies and their credit rating is still tops. I'm not an economist by any stretch but that doesn't seem fatalistic.

4. Commodity prices are down dramatically from recent highs but I have read that collectively, they are at five year average values.

5. Looking at the Canadian economy, we were in recession arond 1983 and again in 1991. The year over year GDP growth respectively went from +3.5% to -3% in 83 and +5% to -2% in 91. 2008 saw us go from +2.8% to +0.6%. there doesn't seem to be any comparison statistically when you look at GDP. Even next year, I don't think our economy is predicted to contract but time will tell.

6. In both 83 and 91, the economy rebounded relatively quickly to higher peaks. People know this and we have a buyers market that at present does not have the publics confidence. This will change and the trickle of money going in the markets will increase as confidence increases. It is the way.