July 07, 2009

The economy is clearly in awful shape. But at least on Wall Street, there are signs that a recovery is taking root.A review of activity in the first six months of the year shows that dealmakers are slowly getting back to work raising cash for corporate clients. Certain key sectors of markets left for dead earlier in the year, such as sales of initial public offerings and junk bonds, are showing flickers of life.

The lights are coming back on in trading desks that all but shut down after Lehman Brothers collapsed last fall. Even individual investors are sticking their toes back in, a sign that at least a few people have some extra cash to play with nowadays.The institutions formerly known as investment banks have a long way to go before returning to full-throttle, and the outlook for the rest of the year is murky.