I am always looking for countervailing trends taht may catch both the “herd” and the talking heads by surprise. Sometimes it will be a market observation or perhaps a “real world” observation…”who is going to shop in all these new stores and eat at all the new restaurants that have sprouted in reccent years…or What? Another electronic store!.

In any case this past weekend I saw signs that some of the 9 Trillion sitting on the sidelines was being put back to work. I own an 1865 home that places me often in Home Depot (HD), in fact some have observed that HD may be my second property given the time I spend there.

Since July or so and more so since September (can you say “Lehman Collapse”) I have been able to get front row parking and sashay up to the lineless registers on any day.

This past weekend after parking in the outer reaches of the parking lot and waiting in line to cash out at HD. I headed to Panera Bread for lunch. The mall road was as busy as the weekend before Christmas (in a good year) and Panera’s was packed with people with not a single table available.

We should not be overcome with irrational exhuberance but I believe that the American consumer/investor is fulfilling many delayed purchases and enjoying some of the simpler weekend activities. Soon we will see reports of declining inventories and profit and revenue increasing slowly but convincingly…as part of that 9 Trillion goes to work at the mall and the market.