Youll know that Ive been saying for a long time now that the recession will end sooner than most experts in the City seem to think. How dare I? Well, I base this on a very long experience of share shifting which includes a few big slumps, some of which seem worse to me than the present crisis.

And now Im indebted to Zak Mir, no stranger to this excellent share website, for a message he sent to my in box (via Branduk.net) supporting my rosy view.

In fact Zaks cheery message goes a lot further Happy Days! According to the National Institute of Economic Research, the end of the recession is nigh. Frankly, some of the trading reports and numbers from the retail sector over the past few months had more or less confirmed this.

Zakkers points to the latest figures from Argos, the catalogue shop, which are really rather good and show their recent share price does not reflect their true position which is quite perky.

If Argos is doing well, so probably will most other big retailers. Come to think of it, the last M and S figures werent all that shocking, either. And shops around my neck of the woods seem to be heaving.

Now, I still have some cash, having sold shares during that really bad September. Most of it went back into shares and most of those investments have made rather a lot of cash since. They do not however make up for my pre-September losses.

Never mind, if the recession is on the wane, and I should add that some figures this week show that more mortgages are being taken out, then I may well use up the rest of my cash on shares. Then, hopefully, it wont be long before my assets start to get back to normal. Then I can keep rocking on.