Long Live the King

The world didn’t get sick all at once. And it won’t recover all at once either.

Without the ravenous Chinese maw gobbling up ores and coal and oil in great big heaping mounds, commodity-exporting countries are now feeling the pain. Welcome, Canada, to economic hard times. Welcome, also, Australia, Russia, and Brazil.

But it’s the U.S. – the pied piper of countries worldwide – that led other economies down the path to ruin…

Europe followed obediently behind us. Their economies began to sour 6-8 months after ours.

It was only then that China reluctantly fell into line. They had their first sub-11 percent quarter in the April-to-May period. Now they’re watching consumers from Peoria to Paris ratchet down shopping as hope of a short recession fades.

It has taken more than a year for the rest of the world to catch the slow-growth virus. In following us down the rabbit hole, they’ll also follow us back up. But it’s a process. If we’re 10-24 months away from the beginning of a recovery, our fellow travelers are 16-30 months removed.

This is not a quick journey we’re on. Companies will need lots of cash to see it through. More than ever, cash is king.

[Ed. Note: The corporate world is having a tough time these days, but you can still make money if you pay attention to the “red flags” – signals that could predict (with as much as 92 percent certainty) when a company’s stock is going to tank. Know that, and you could make a bundle.]