Economic outlook

Recovery. I've been up to date with the markets for a while, and it seems pretty bullish.

Economic data has been surprising to the upside year to date, but this trend is set to abate in the next quarter or two as structural issues come back to the fore. Record margins plus rising input costs aren't exactly going to help corporate profitability and high commodity prices aren't beneficial for overall global growth (follow the money, see who gets the windfall profits and how productive their economies really are, eg the Arabs). Given the lack of credit availability for SMEs I wonder where all that job creation in consensus estimates is going to come from. Ho hum.

^ record margins...with rising input costs?

Ay, there's the rub.. (ie I don't think we'll have margins sustainable at these levels, particularly as they were largely as a result of cutting operations to the bone)