But the surge in pay is still keeping millionaires on the sidelines.  Simon Mellon, of our new Bonner and Partners Family Office service, has been eyeing the sentiment of high net worth Americans.  And the picture ain’t pretty.

Fed sees the bright side… Bernanke says worst it over, inflation not a worry… Warren Buffett can’t see any green shoots… even after eye surgery… Alan Knuckman on how to survive a sideways stock market… Byron King says now’s a good time to book profits on this sector… Housing still out of whack… one chart foreshadows the market’s next move…

Currencies rally…  More on the BRIC’s…  New Zealand’s GDP contracts..  Bernanke gets grilled! And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

It’s always a pleasant surprise to find yourself in good company. As loyal readers already know, here at Notes HQ we’re not exactly part of the “in crowd.” Whether we’re writing about the trillion dollar deficits, banks’ phony earnings, government bamboozles or the sucker’s rally in stocks, you’re unlikely to find the official spin in our daily missives.

Stocks are stalling. So says today’s Financial Times… “Major equity markets came under pressure yesterday and initial gains for commodities eroded as investors cast doubt over the global economic outlook.”

Recent signs of stabilization in the US housing market are “likely to be the mother of all head fakes,” say Whitney Tilson and Glenn Tongue of value hedge fund T2 Partners. They say the signs of ‘stabilization’ are due to two short-term factors:

Stocks surged yesterday. Gold sold off. And more “green shoots” appeared in the form of better than expected consumer confidence figures.  Crisis Strategy Alert editor James Dale Davidson reckons the “green shoots” of recovery proposition are overbought. He also reckons gold is still the asset of choice to hold as the great deleveraging continues.

Is the hoped-for economic rebound merely a mirage? And if it is, how should you play it? For the past few months, optimistic analysts and investors have been scouring the global economy for so-called “green shoots” – a new financial buzzword that refers to any early indicators of a financial recovery.