NORTHBROOK, IL -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/20/08 -- Market observers have noted that the current investing world is often driven by psychology and emotions, but the process will run its course and there will be the eventual recovery. However, there is now real concern that "typical" may not be the case, and that a fundamental and permanent change in the financial order may be developing. Coming in the back door is the very real prospect of a sustained, energy price driven impact on every aspect of our financial process and throughout the world.

TrendPointers' Sentiment Signals: Overall, economic sentiment remains largely negative to watchful in the business media (83%), down from (88%) last month, as stock markets have rebounded despite weakness in some other economic indicators. The slight improvement is also noted in the Mass Media, but the Guru Media remain unchanged in their negative assessment of the overall economy. In addition, the notion of a recession seems to have established itself throughout the media and consumer sentiment is at record lows.

The great majority (73%) of the business media sentiment is at best uncertain or more often acknowledges that the economy is in a recession, but this is a decline from the 91% who expressed the same views last month. Most market observers have written 2008 off, and are projecting/hoping that the recovery will be realized in 2009.

Back to the Backdoor. Now that the "Recession" moment has been widely acknowledged, there is also a sigh of relief, because the anticipation part is over, and the observers can focus on recovery speculation. But, some observers believe this "recession" will set a new benchmark, in that there is no typical recovery from a possibly permanent shift in energy resource availability and its impact on food and commodity prices and corollary energy dependent industries. In addition, the potential energy solutions are much too far in the future for any near term help. Media sentiment across the board is still definitely negative.

--  Guru Media Sentiment: Positive 8% vs. Negative 41%
--  Business Media Sentiment: Positive 17% vs. Negative 49%
--  Mass Media Sentiment: Positive 11% vs. Negative 44%
    

Announcement. TrendPointers Institutional Sentiment Report is now available at www.TrendPointers.com. TrendPointers, LLC is a business trend and research firm that investigates how the continuous flow of news and public information influences business decisions and influences the financial markets.

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