Barclays: Market Almost Safe For New Small Businesses

It’s a rare person who can describe our current economic situation as "nice."  Still, one benefit of it has been that existing small businesses haven’t seen much new competition, and in a bit of a good news/bad news situation, Barclays reports that circumstances should soon improve to the point that fresh companies will launch.

"We believe most of the downward adjustment will have occurred by the end of the year, and a lot of the fall has already occurred," stated Nic Bayley, a Barclays exec, in reference to startups becoming somewhat rare.

Current small business owners will possess an edge over newbies due to having been around longer, though, so hopefully the development will be positive for most of you.  Also, Baley continued, "Business closures are also past their peak and are likely to level off shortly."  And it’s hard to be unhappy about that.

These predictions revolve around 2009 and early 2010 in terms of a timeframe.  According to Barclays, then, we’re approaching the light at the end of the tunnel, and (since a depression was possible and Metallica has released a new album) it’s not a freight train heading our way.

A random check-in on the market offers supporting evidence: in contrast to previous plunges, the Dow’s only down about 17 points right now.