THERE MUST BE A PHOENIX IN ALL OF THIS

I attended an M&A seminar today, and I learned something. The market may be wounded and questionable, but it's not dead. The mega-deals may have gone away for awhile, but we are living proof that we aren't going away anytime soon.

Okay, the market has taken a big hit, but even as I write this, the market shows signs of life and the government's bail out plan is yet implemented. The market may bounce like a ball for awhile. We aren't holding our breath though.

Public ownership aside, there is private placement money still on the loose and looking for opportunities. And, remember, quality sells in any market. If your balance sheet and assets look bad, clean them up. A knowledgeable buyer won't buy junk in most markets and certainly not under the present circumstances. Manufacturing still looks good while building and construction are way down on the bottom. You know that all of this is cyclical even in the worst of times. We still have to have shelter, eat and commute.

In my business of appraising machinery and equipment, us practitioners are waiting and seeing like most folks. We don't know if manufacturers are going to retrench or re-credit. They can't very well be looking for credit when the greed merchants have already put the lid on legitimate sources.

Compounding conditions are the rehabilitating and rebuilding of devastated areas like New Orleans, Biloxi, Galveston, and cities in Missouri, Iowa, and Colorado, only to name the ones that I can remember; they're so many. We want to give our citizens help via the government resources also. So everything hits at the same time. But, what's new?

The financial world took a hit today!

The Wall Street whack over the weekend of September 14-15th -- couldn't you just feel it coming? Yes, the proof that Bears make money, Bulls make money and Pigs get slaughtered is right there on the news channels today.
Not that major funding mismanagement has anything to do with it, I'm sure, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics ,PPI, August 2008, and out Sept. 12, 2008 show a goods decline by 0.9 percent in August "seasonally adjusted."
Further, the "index for finished energy goods declined 4.6 percent in August etc. etc. That's all awash now in the wake of Hurricane IKE.
So in the wake of man made and natural disasters -- what's next?
If we knew that there wouldn't be any problems we couldn't plan for. In the consulting business where properties are inspected and values researched, look for changes -- again.
According to what I see via the Internet and friends reporting in: The prices in stainless are dropping, but carbon steel remains high and looks positive. Precious metals, they're always up and down, but reasonably steady today. And, despite auctions of prime manufacturing facilities by the day, manufacturing in the U.S. still has some life.
Current economic signs, who knows? They're like the weather, but we can't stop planning, it's just not the way we Americans do things.