Best Guess: Senate Finance Edition

I feel like my entire morning was waiting, waiting, waiting on a decision from the Senate Finance Committee today.  When you sit back and think about it, it is going to be months of debate and frustration for everyone involved before we have any movement on health care.  I'm going to post our interview with AHIP's Senior Vice President in a few hours, but for now, Best Guess:

DUNSTAN PRIAL: Unemployment will NOT hit 10%. The nay sayers said there’d be a fall swoon in the stock markets, and that the recovery wasn’t real. Well, there’s been no fall swoon, and the recovery is real and companies are going to start adding jobs 1Q 2010.

TOM SULLIVAN: People will open their wallets for the holiday shopping season.  Sales will be up 1%.  Even luxury goods will have decent sales as people take a break from frugality.  However, once the Christmas lights and Santa are packed away for another year, retail sales will drop, i.e. whatever bump they get will not be sustainable.
JAMES LEBENTHAL: stock market moves higher to end the year at 1150 on the SPX.  There is a large contingent of professional money managers who have disbelieved the rally.  With cash dragging their performance behind that of the indices, they have two and a half months for catch-up.  Their only option is to invest in a rising market and that will continue the rally to year-end.
STUART VARNEY: The Baucus plan will pass today, but overall broad based reform will fail.

CHERYL CASONE: CIT Group cannot avoid bankruptcy at this point, with Peek leaving and the shares below a dollar, the stock will be delisted and the company goes into Chapter 11.  Good news? They emerge from Chapter 11, but a much smaller version of their old self with a lot less lending capacity.  This is good for the larger financials like B of A and JPM in the long run, because they will begin to provide the financing that CIT did to American companies.