I'm not sure that gaming revenue is Vegas recovering is the best measure to say whether or not the recession is over or not. This might be one of many data points you might look at. Remember, when the market bottomed out in 4Q08/1Q09, gaming revenues were destroyed (as indicated by your chart). When you see gaming revenues growing from a prior month/quarter, remember that they are starting for a much lower base than where they were back in 2007. As an example 17% growth on $1B is much less interesting that 17% growth on $10B

Other data points you should look at to determine if the recession is over:
1. Stock Market - the stock market usually is a good 6-10 month leading indicator or the overall economy because stock prices are largely determined by investors' future expectations about earnings. Given that the market is up quite a bit over the past 6 months, that tells you that investors are gaining more confidence.

2. Corporate Earnings- These have been up in 3Q09 but you should look at what is driving this. There are 2 ways to increase earnings: 1. grow revenue (the better way); 2. Cut expenses (the worse way). Many companies are beating earnings because of #2.

3. Unemployment: This number continues to rise. Typically this is a lagging indicator because companies wait until they are sure their businesses are healthly prior to hiring more people, so at this point we'd expect that this number is either still rising slightly or flat.

I hope this is helpful

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