Improving?

It's probably going to be rough seas for a long time but maybe -- just maybe -- we have staved off a systematic economic meltdown. I won't pretend I understand what Calculated Risk is monitoring with these indicators but they seem to be saying we're at least only circling the drain instead of diving through it.

The yield on 3 month treasuries: 0.79% up from up from 0.40% (BETTER)

The TED spread: 3.59 down from 4.11 yesterday (BETTER)

Activity in the Treasury's Supplementary Financing Program (SFP). This is the Treasury program to raise cash for the Fed's liquidity initiatives. If this program slows down borrowing, I think that would be a good sign.

Here is a list of SFP sales. No announcement today have to wait for progress.

The A2P2 spread is 4.49 for Thrusday up from 4.4 for Wenesday. slightly worse.

Industry contacts. I'm tracking some financing deals there are being held up right now. If these deals complete that would be a good sign (I'll post something when this happens). No improvement yet.

The two year swap spread from Bloomberg: 122.2 down from 138.38 BETTER

I'll add a couple more indicators, but this is progress.