Obama: Time of crisis can be 'great opportunity'

Obama sounds hopeful theme, says country will turn bleak times into `great opportunity'

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trying to buck up a dispirited nation, President Barack Obama on Saturday promised that prosperous days will return and cast these bleak times as nothing less than a "great opportunity." Packing some heft with his hope, he defended his fast-moving and expensive agenda.
"We will get through this," Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped Friday after another week of downbeat news.
The unemployment rate climbed to 8.1 percent, the highest in more than 25 years. Stock values kept tumbling, down to their lowest levels since 1997. The latest Gallup polling finds that an anemic 20 percent of people in the United States are satisfied with the state of the nation. At least that's an improvement from the 14 percent a month earlier.
Rather than pitch ahead to his next message, Obama devoted his address to recapping what his team did this past week to help get people working and spending.
The goal was to demonstrate that the administration is on the case and, more broadly, that history shows American resilience will win.
"We've experienced great trials before," Obama said. "And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper -- to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis. That is what we can and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do."

The echoes of history emerge often as Obama seeks a balance between the practical language of governing and the oratory meant to keep people inspired. Just a few days earlier, he promoted new transportation plans by saying the nation built itself up before, during the Civil War and the Great Depression.
Recent efforts include a more detailed plan to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure; another plan to spur lending for people and businesses; an overhaul of the way the government hands out private contracts to reduce waste; and a summit on how to overhaul health care.
He defended his budget proposal, whacked Wall Street "accounting tricks" and sent a message to Congress that it must make some tough choices.

Separately, the president offered advice to people struggling to pay their bills. He told The New York Times that people should be prudent and get back to fundamentals, with an eye on steady savings, reasonable returns and long-term investing.
"What I don't think people should do is suddenly stuff money in their mattresses and pull back completely from spending," Obama told the newspaper in an interview posted on its Web site Saturday. "I don't think that people should be fearful about our future. I don't think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions because the overwhelming majority of them actually have managed things reasonably well."
The president would not say whether the economy will be growing again by year's end. He said that timing depends on several factors. Notable among them was his call for other countries to take actions to shore up their financial markets and coordinate those actions with the U.S.

Another busy week awaits Obama, who was at Camp David for the weekend with his family.
On Monday, he plans to reverse President George W. Bush's restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. On Tuesday, it is a push for education overhaul. Come Thursday, he will discuss the economic rescue with state officials.
"From the day I took office, I knew that solving this crisis would not be easy, nor would it happen overnight," Obama said in the weekly address. "And we will continue to face difficult days in the months ahead. But I also believe that we will get through this -- that if we act swiftly and boldly and responsibly, the United States of America will emerge stronger and more prosperous than it was before."
More than 4 million jobs have disappeared since the recession began in December 2007. The rate of the job losses is only accelerating.

Obama says the country can't afford to take on one big problem at a time. Politically, his strongest time to attack them all may be now.

In one of the biggest examples, he has set a goal of signing a bill this year that would fix the health care system, which leaves millions uninsured.
Obama says he is not wedded to a plan on how to fix the problem. But one proposal he has endorsed, giving people the option of buying medical coverage through a government plan, is drawing opposition from Republicans.
Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., emphasized that point in the GOP's weekly radio address. "I'm concerned that if the government steps in it will eventually push out the private health care plans millions of Americans enjoy today," Blunt said.



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A look at the week ahead for Wall Street

With little in the way of earnings or market-moving economic news on tap this week, stocks will continue to take a cue from the financial sector as investors try to see if the latest levels can hold.
There's been such a tremendous selloff in the financial sector and in some of the retailers, that at some point even traders who are betting on a weak market are going to want to get in, said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co.

And the mild reaction to a dismal jobs report last Friday could suggest that the time is nearing.

"How much lower can Citigroup go when it's down around a buck?," asked Dickson, adding, "We're starting to get to the point where the risk of a big upside in the market is greater than the risk of a bigger downside."
With the Dow and S&P 500 both down more than 50% off their October 2007 highs, a decent bounce is not hard to imagine, said Gary Hager, president of Integrated Wealth Management.
He said that the pent-up demand is equivalent to shoppers pressing against the door of a store that is about to open for a sale, but the shoppers wont' budge until the first few jump in. Once they start moving, the rest will follow.

Ripe for a bear market rally. In both October and November of 2008, the stock market stabilized at levels that many market pros were betting could be the bottom, before ultimately declining further. That could be the case now as well, Dickson said. But he also said that some of what he has been seeing lately is reminiscent of the way Wall Street ultimately stabilized during the last bear market, bottoming between October 2002 and March 2003.
Dickson noted that the number of New York Stock Exchange stocks making new lows has dropped dramatically with each so-called "bottom," in October, November and now. As such, that could indicate a stabilization.
Also, from a contrarian perspective, stocks are ripe for a bounce. The American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) said 70.3% of investors surveyed were bearish, as of Wednesday. That's the highest level since the index was created in 1987.

The bearish sentiment index has been hovering between 39 and 55 over the past two months, but then last week suddenly jumped to 70.3, said Cara Scatizzi, associate financial analyst at AAII.
In tune with the bearish tone, investors pulled billions out of equity mutual funds last week. According to the latest report from Trim Tabs, investors pulled $29.9 billion out of stocks in the week ended March 4, versus an outflow of $18 billion in the previous week.

The question is what might help soothe the market and even trigger a bear-market rally. So far, most of the government initiatives announced have failed to provide the spark, including the $787 billion stimulus plan, Treasury's "stress tests" for banks and President Obama's $3.6 trillion 2010 budget.
Dickson said that indications over the next month that Congress is going to chip away at some of the spending in the budget could help, while Hager said the suspension of the mark-to-market accounting rule would help.
On the docket
Tuesday: The January wholesale inventories report is due shortly after the market opens. Inventories are expected to have fallen 1% after dropping 1.4% in December.
In Washington, the Senate Energy Committee holds a hearing on offshore drilling. On Thursday, the same committee discusses transmission lines.
Wednesday: The government's weekly crude inventories report is due out at 10:30 a.m. ET, as well as the February Treasury budget at 2 p.m. ET.
In Washington, the congressional oversight panel is due to release a report on the oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a.k.a. the bank bailout plan.

Thursday: February retail sales are due before the start of trade from the Commerce Dept. Sales are expected to have fallen 0.4% after rising 1% in the previous month. Sales excluding volatile autos are expected to have fallen 0.2% after rising 0.9% in January.
The government's weekly jobless claims report is also due in the morning. 640,000 Americans are expected to have filed new claims for unemployment versus 639,000 in the previous week. Weekly claims hit a 26-year high of 667,000 in February. The number of Americans continuing to stay on unemployment is expected to remain near record levels of 5,112,000.

The January business inventories report is due for release after the start of trading. Inventories are expected to have fallen 1.1% after dropping 1.3% in the previous month.
In Washington, a House Financial Services sub-committee debates mark-to-market (MTM) accounting, a rule that critics say has exacerbated the credit crisis. MTM requires banks to report the value of their investments if they sold them now, even though some of those assets - like mortgage-backed securities - have tumbled dramatically.
Friday: The January trade balance, due before the start of trading, is expected to have widened to $38.2 billion from $39.9 billion in December.
Also due are reports on February import and export prices and the initial March consumer sentiment index from the University of Michigan.


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