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Beige Book Turns Almost Optimistic in December

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The Federal Reserve Board’s Beige Book has offered a dismal report and dismal outlook for what is roughly two years now.  That can’t be a shock considering how crummy the economy and job prospects have been.  But today’s release of the Beige Book from the FRB has turned what will feel almost nothing short of outright optimism.

Some of the topics covered are that economic conditions are improving, consumer spending is up moderately, and that home sales and construction activity improved.

There are of course some cautious bits as well.  The Federal Reserve noted that commercial real estate was deteriorating in activity and expectations there are low for 2010.  It also noted that labor market conditions remained weak with little to no wage pressure building.

The cut-off date for information was listed as November 20, 2009, which means that at least some of the data at the next Beige Book may be even better if things continue as they have.

If you are a dead-set Fed-Head, you can read the full Beige Book made avaialable from the FRB here.

JON C. OGG
DECEMBER 2, 2009

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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