Signs of rebound showing

We are approaching the end of the second quarter, when, we’ve been told, we’ll slide into the summer months where the grass is green, flowers bloom and breezes blow gently.

The conventional wisdom for months now has been that the third quarter would see an end to our misery and the fourth quarter would bring our relief.

MY OPINION: THOMAS OLIVER
• Send an e-mail

RECENT COLUMNS
[an error occurred while processing this directive] • More Thomas Oliver

In other words, the bottom is somewhere around here. The path back will be long and not without its own brand of misery — can you say, jobless recovery?

But there is no denying certain signs.

While not an application for the Optimist Club, the following is an attempt to see the glass filling, if nowhere yet near the brim.

The stock market, for example.

“Probably the most encouraging news is that, historically, the stock market has been the best leading indicator of how economic growth will look 6 months down the road,” states Phil Larkins, senior portfolio manager at Northern Trust-Atlanta.

We’ll leave it to the stockbrokers and market gurus to label it bull, bear market rally, head fake or whatever. The fact is the S&P 500 has increased more than 35 percent in the last three months.

That’s got to make folks whose 401(k)s gave way beneath them feel better.

Plus, if the six months out predictive equation is working, the little engine that could should start chugging along somewhere around — voila — end of third quarter, beginning of fourth.

Larkins also sees some good news in housing, where some might say you have to squint and almost pretend.

While prices don’t indicate a bottom, Larkins sees the excess supply of houses beginning to be absorbed.

As a banker, Larkins is particularly glad to see the 10 large financial institutions, including his own, cleared to repay their TARP money. Such an unwinding of the entanglement of Big Brother and Big Business shows that “capitalism isn’t totally forgotten in Washington,” according to Larkins.

From Athens, Jeffrey M. Humphreys, director of the Selig Center at the Terry College of Business, writes that economic development has been resurrected.

“The climate for deal making improved significantly in the second quarter as demonstrated by the fact that the Georgia Department of Economic Development closed seven major economic development projects over the last eight to nine weeks,” Humphreys declares.

Among the projects Humphreys listed was the well publicized relocation of NCR; General Mills’ plans for a new distribution center in Social Circle; Chico’s FAS’s expansion in Barrow County; Cbeyond Communications’ expansion in Cobb County; KMC Atlanta’s new plant in Atlanta; Chicken of the Sea’s new canning operation in Lyons; and Verizon Wireless’s announcement that it will open a new customer service center in Alpharetta.

Those seven projects represent nearly 4,000 direct jobs over the next several years.

“Georgia is starting to refill its economic development pipeline, which is a necessary condition for the ultimate recovery and expansion of Georgia’s economy,” the UGA economist noted.

Since it is all about jobs, that’s good news. Anyway you slice it.

Thomas Oliver is a business columnist. You can reach him at toliver.writeright@gmail.com.