Strategist: We've Hit the Worst of the Recession

Pessimism is pretty rampant in the market today, as this recession is on track to be the longest in the post-war era.

For glass-half-empty folks, Charles Schwab just reported these survey results from a poll of 1,200 investment advisers (via The Wallet):

When asked to predict how long they thought the current recession would last, 41% said it would wrap up in December of this year and 41% said December 2010. When it came to their clients’ portfolio’s recuperating, 35% said that their clients until December 2014 to fully recover. 32% thought client recovery would come in December 2011, 18% by December 2010.

Now, here's some market commentary from a glass-half-full strategist--BlackRock's Bob Doll, global CIO of equities:

In our opinion, we are in the midst of the worst of the recession. We expect a sharp contraction in first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) as demand remains weak and businesses work through built-up inventories. Looking ahead, we would expect the rate of economic decline to lessen in the second quarter, GDP to flatten out in the second half of 2009 and growth to return to positive (although subpar) levels in 2010.