One reason Rosenberg, 52, is trying to look on the bright side is because many other economists have turned more bearish.
“That’s raised my contrarian antenna,” he said.
GDP probably will grow 2 percent in 2013, down from a projected 2.2 percent this year, according to the median forecast of 74 economists surveyed by Bloomberg last month.
Among the more hopeful signs, Rosenberg said, is the bottoming out of the housing market. New-home construction rose 3.6 percent to a four-year high in October, according to the Commerce Department.
‘Strong Phase’
“We’re in a strong phase of the recovery,” Martin Connor, chief financial officer of Toll Brothers Inc., a Horsham, Pennsylvania-based luxury homebuilder, said during a conference presentation on Nov. 15. “It’s a function of five years of pent-up demand being released.” Affordability and rising prices also are “spurring people to buy.”
The banking industry also is on the mend, Rosenberg said. “The banks are certainly in better position and more willing to lend money than they have been for years,” after buttressing their balance sheets.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, provided $15 billion of credit for small businesses in the third quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in an Oct. 12 press release.
Rosenberg also is encouraged by what he calls a “secular renaissance” of the U.S. manufacturing industry -- with output rising 16 percent during the recovery, according to the Fed -- and a surge in American energy production.
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