Dollar drops against all others…

This was another week of mixed reports, but even among the bad news there were actually some very positive reports and positive signs. So for two weeks in a row we can go under the mantra of “things might not be quite as bad as they seem.” Some economists have even dared to venture that maybe, just maybe, the recession could ease or end by year’s end. We’ll still be a long way from booming, but hey, growing slowly is much better than contracting.

Along with the Forex news, one of the largest signs of encouragement has been Wall Street, which has been rallying at its best clip in nearly six months. Although a lot of people aren’t particular fans of Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, they listened when he said that the recession could end before year’s end if the government’s efforts to stabilize the banking industry succeeded.

While last week saw surprising good news from Bank of America and Citigroup, this week saw good news from Britain’s Barclays PLC, which joined these banks in releasing positive reports of how the early part of 2009 was shaping up. The uptick in the U.S. stock market has also been reflected in most of the world’s other major stock markets, as well.

Some other important news for this week has been the release of a stimulus package specifically aimed at small businesses in the U.S. although this was unfortunately overshadowed by news of the AIG bonuses, and the quickly resulting rage that a company getting billions in tax payer dollars was giving away millions of dollars in bonuses to executives who oversaw the biggest corporate losses in history.

In the end even this might not be bad news, as the resulting anger has resulted in some executives giving their bonuses back, and the passing of a bill to tax those bonuses at huge rates to get the stimulus money back. This could even end up being a positive, as it allays fears that the government either wouldn’t, or wouldn’t be able to, supervise spending of the stimulus money to help jump start the economy.

You know things are starting to turn around when even bad news can turn out to have a silver lining that gives it a chance at being good news. So take the good news when it comes and without any further ado here is this week in review. 

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