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9:00 AM EST, Friday, August 21, 2009: You can be depressed, excited or ignore it all. In backwards order:

This book is superb. I cannot put it down. Or more correctly, I cannot put my ThinkPad notebook down. I'm reading the book on it.

You can get Born to Run from Amazon in hard cover for $13.72 or $9.99 for your Kindle. Or you can buy the hard cover for $16.21 or $9.99 for your PC's eReader from Barnes and Noble. Or you can buy it from your local bookstore for $24.95. Sayonara local bookstore.

I bought the $9.99 version for my PC's eReader and sat on Continental to Denver totally engrossed. The guy sitting next to me was reading a book on the Kindle. Frankly I think my typeface and readability was much better, viz:.

The plane from Newark to Denver arrived 10 minutes early. Shucks. I wish it had been an hour late, so I could have finished the book. Did Murphy invent that law also?

Number two: Getting excited: This weekend's Economist has this leader:

World economy: U, V or W for recovery
The world economy has stopped shrinking. That’s the end of the good news

IT HAS been deep and nasty. But the worst global recession since the 1930s may be over. Led by China, Asia’s emerging economies have revived fastest, with several expanding at annualised rates of more than 10% in the second quarter. A few big rich economies also returned to growth, albeit far more modestly, between April and June. Japan’s output rose at an annualised pace of 3.7%, and both Germany and France notched up annualised growth rates of just over 1%. In America the housing market has shown signs of stabilising, the pace of job losses is slowing and the vast majority of forecasters expect output to expand between July and September. Most economies are still a lot smaller than they were a year ago. On a quarterly basis, though, they are turning the corner.

This is good news. The first step in any recovery is for output to stop shrinking. But the more interesting question is what shape the recovery will take. The debate centres around three scenarios: “V”, “U” and “W”. A V-shaped recovery would be vigorous, as pent-up demand is unleashed. A U-shaped one would be feebler and flatter. And in a W-shape, growth would return for a few quarters, only to peter out once more.

Optimists argue that the scale of the downturn augurs for a strong rebound. America’s deepest post-war recessions, they point out, were followed by vigorous recoveries. In the two years after the slump of 1981-82, for instance, output soared at an average annual rate of almost 6%; and this time round, output has slumped even further, and for longer, than it did in the early 1980s.

Pessimists, meanwhile, think this downturn’s origins favour a weak recovery or a double-dip. Unlike typical post-war recessions this slump was spawned by a financial bust, not high interest rates, and when overindebted borrowers need to rebuild their balance-sheets and financial systems need repair, growth can be weak and easily derailed for years. Japan’s 1990s banking crisis left the economy stagnant for a decade; a premature tax increase in 1997 plunged it back into recession.

Neither of these parallels is exact, because today’s global slump combines several types of downturn and an unprecedented policy response. In formerly bubble economies, it is largely a balance-sheet recession. Debt-fuelled consumption has been felled. But the scale of collapse was broadened and deepened by the freezing up of the machinery of global finance, a dramatic collapse in confidence and stock-slashing. It was then countered with the biggest stimulus in history. The shape of the recovery depends on how these forces interact.

In the short term that shape could look beguilingly like a “V”, as stimulus kicks in and the inventory cycle turns. In emerging Asia, the unfreezing of trade finance, a turnaround in stocks and hefty fiscal stimulus are powering a rebound. Government support, especially employment subsidies and incentives to buy new cars, has cushioned demand in Germany and France. With export orders rising and confidence growing, the next few months could be surprisingly buoyant. Even in America, the fiscal stimulus is kicking in, the “cash for clunkers” scheme is a big, if temporary, prop to output and firms will, sooner or later, stop cutting inventories.

Yet a rebound based on stock adjustments is necessarily temporary, and one based on government stimulus alone will not last. Beyond those two factors there is little reason for cheer. America’s housing market may yet lurch down again as foreclosures rise, high unemployment takes its toll and a temporary home-buyers’ tax-credit ends (see article). Even if housing stabilises, consumer spending will stay weak as households pay down debt. In America and other post-bubble economies, a real V-shaped bounce seems fanciful. Elsewhere, it will happen only if vigorous private domestic demand picks up the baton from government stimulus. In Japan and Germany, where joblessness has further to rise, that seems unlikely any time soon. The odds are better in emerging economies, especially China. But even there an array of reforms, from a stronger currency to an overhaul of subsidies, is needed to boost labour income and encourage consumption. Until that shift takes place, the global recovery will be fragile and probably quite feeble. A gloomy U with a long, flat bottom of weak growth is the likeliest shape of the next few years.

J.M. Smucker Profit More Than Doubles, Driven by Folgers
J.M. Smucker Co.'s fiscal first-quarter earnings more than doubled, driven by its Folgers acquisition and volume increases at its U.S. retail businesses, exceeding Wall Street expectations.

The company said fiscal-year earnings are more likely to be at the higher end of its June estimate for $3.65 to $3.80 a share, which was above analysts' estimates at the time. It affirmed its fiscal-year revenue forecast.

Smucker -- which makes jams, jellies and Jif peanut butter, as well as Crisco oils and Jif -- has bought up a series of food and consumer brands, many of which were dumped by larger competitors.

Third good news. I had dinner last night in Boulder, Colorado. The restaurants were full. There were lines of eager eaters. The town is loaded with new houses and new shopping centers. The town is spotless. Happy people walk the streets at night and watch the fire-eating performers. If there's a recession out there, don't tell it to the folks in Boulder. They ain't feeling it. And what a gorgeous location for the town -- at the foothills of the Rockies.

Boulder, Colorado. Booming with Fed government agencies and college parties.

Number three: Getting depressed: How goes commercial real estate? Not well. From my friend, the guru:

Nothing's happening in real estate. People are desperate to believe that the worst is over. They devour any positive news; but the reality is, we've got a long way to go. Commercial real estate hasn't yet paid the piper. Too many buildings are still getting by with legacy leases at rental rates that they won't be able to duplicate. When those leases end, either because their terms are up or the tenants can no longer pay the rents, we'll start to see massive failures in that industry.

Sorry I can't be more positive.

The failures will hurt the banks and cause a second massive round of bank failures. Lesson for all of us: Don't have more than $250,000 in any one bank. God knows where the FDIC will get the money from... Ooops. I know. We'll print more. Fortunately, it costs less to print a $100 note than $100. Now why aren't I in that business? Here's the second piece of depressing news:

Chart of the Day
Today's chart illustrates how the recent plunge in earnings has impacted the current valuation of the stock market as measured by the price to earnings ratio (PE ratio). Generally speaking, when the PE ratio is high, stocks are considered to be expensive. When the PE ratio is low, stocks are considered to be inexpensive. From 1936 into the late 1980s, the PE ratio tended to peak in the low 20s (red line) and trough somewhere around seven (green line).

The price investors were willing to pay for a dollar of earnings increased during the dot-com boom (late 1990s) and the dot-com bust (early 2000s). As a result of the recent plunge in earnings and recent stock market rally, the PE ratio spiked and just peaked at 144 – a record high. Currently, with 97% of US corporations having reported for Q2 2009, the PE ratio now stands at a lofty 129.

Favorite New Yorker cartoons:

I'm in Colorado for a wedding and to fulfill my 93-year old father-in-law's lifelong dream to see the Rockies. We're off to buy oxygen this morning. I hear serving tennis balls at 9,000 feet is awesome.

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse, though some look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Michael's business school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.