Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Even before the stock market opened Tuesday, there were signs that, for investors, things would get worse before they get better. Pre-market indications showed an S&P 500 and Nasdaq that were set to tank at the opening bell.

But even as market indicators remained scary, and have been since the banking meltdown last September, some observers out there are giving reasons to keep a stiff upper lip.

Michael S. Malone has written an interesting item on what he sees as light at the end of the tunnel of economic malaise, and that light is coming from Silicon Valley:

But to me, the single most important indicator that high tech is coming back is the fact that every day when I stop by Peet's coffee in Cupertino to get my double large latte, there are at least two - - and sometimes three or four - - groups of men and women in tight circles hunched over a single laptop making a presentation or typing on spreadsheets. And I see this phenomenon all over Silicon Valley.

I know what these folks are doing, because I've been there: these are start-up teams plotting the creation of new companies. Downturns tend to bring out entrepreneurs, largely because there's a lot more talented people with free time. And these days, with the cost of designing a new app for the iPod or Android phone next to nothing, starting a high tech company is easier than ever.

That's not the only sign, and Malone points to the SEMI book-to-bill numbers (which have been hovering at about break even for the past few months). Book-to-bill measures how many incoming semiconductor orders for manufacturers there were in a given month compared to orders that were filled. The numbers indicate a massive drop in the book-to-bill in September - the same time the world was anticipating a global banking collapse and the next Great Depression. But while order numbers since then seem to be treading water, some companies - - notably chip giant Intel - - have been reporting their inventories show some depletion.

People and businesses are still buying CPUs, it seems.

The fact, alone, that lots of out-of-work entrepreneurs are table-clothing business plans right now isn't the best indicator of an economic turnaround. Let's face it: a lot of these ideas will be awful. And reading CPU inventories gives you the feeling of reading tea leaves. But Malone also points out that today's technology is giving us the ability to act much quicker, and on a much vaster scale, than any other economic downturn in our history.

The next Netscape Navigator or Google could very well be on the drawing board in the corner of some Starbucks right now. By next week, it could make the front page of Digg.com. By next month, it could be in its first round of venture financing. The innovation engine keeps chugging away, as anyone who has visited Apple's iTunes App store can tell you.

The pessimists have been getting all the press and headlines. Malone makes a case that an optimist or two might deserve a listen.