Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Some positive news regarding the current financial crisis was released yesterday.  An index of credit quality for troubled public companies improved for the first time in more than a year.  Here is a summary of the findings.

Kamakura Corporation announced Tuesday that the Kamakura index of troubled public companies for January showed improved credit quality for only the second time in the last 18 months. The Kamakura global index of troubled companies decreased 0.9% to 23.1% of the public company universe.  Kamakura defines a troubled company as a company whose short term default probability is in excess of 1%. The all-time high in the index was 28%, recorded in September 2001.

Let's hope this is a good sign for continued recovery and not the train light at the end of the tunnel.