New or False Dawn?
Welcome to the Know the Difference Minute for Wednesday, August 16th. 
Most people think business cycles are actual cycles where they are predictable and follow a preset pattern. The conventional view is that you get expansions, contractions, and repeat. 
The economy is much more complicated than that. The expansions can be of any length. The contractions can be brief or prolonged.
After a rather broad-based economic decline in October through December, we’ve seen a bit of a recovery. We then had another slowdown in March, but now things are looking pretty positive again. It’s not a cycle. It’s more like a rollercoaster.
Rarely do things rise and fall together.
With July retail sales and industrial production numbers beating expectations, is it a new dawn for the economy? Or is it a false dawn?
It may be a little of both depending on where you look and who you ask. 
I’m Brian Jacobsen, Chief Economist at Annex Wealth Management.  That is your Know the Difference Minute.