Port improvements

Container traffic at the Port of Los Angeles nudged up 0.35 percent in December - not much of a gain but nonetheless the first monthly increase since the recession. Inbound traffic was still down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, although outbound activity jumped 40.2 percent, another indication of how increased exports to China and elsewhere has benefited the economy. Container traffic for all of 2009 was down 14 percent. The numbers were even better at the Port of Long Beach, where inbound was up 13.4 percent and outbound up almost 31 percent. Overall traffic was up 8.7 percent for the month and down 13.6 percent for the year. The first few months of the new year should be pretty good, both because retailers will have to restock with merchandise coming in from Asia and because 2009 was so bad that year-over-year comparisons will be easy to improve upon. So what happens after those first few months, when inventories are replenished and the effects of the federal stimulus begin to fade? The safe forecast is slow growth for 2010, with GDP expansion of about 3 percent, according to the WSJ survey of economists. They also put the chances of a recession this year at 16 percent. Others are far gloomier.