Over the last while, clients have been overwhelmed by bad news.For advisors looking to cheer clients up and balance the bad news with some offsetting positives, below is a link to an article from the Globe and Mail Report on Business, outlining "good news" stories that are largely being overlooked.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/partners/free/globeinvestor/investment/nov08/online/goodnews.html

Among the ten good news items in this article:

1. Attractive market valuations
2. The impact of lower oil prices
3. A return to the old virtues among banks
4. Strong political leadership around the world
5. A coordinated global response by central bankers
6. Pruning of weak players
7. Opening of economies and growth of entrepreneurial drive
8. The commitment to global trade
9. The continued payoff from technology
10. A shift in focus by the best and brightest

For advisors who want to add good news of their own, here are two more positive developments to talk to clients about:

Getting caught up on infrastructure

Now that we have agreement that Governments need to spend to help get their economies going again, the next question is what form that spending will take.

There are a number of options being discussed. Increasingly, there is consensus on using this opportunity to upgrade our infrastructure, just as happened in the U.S. in the 1930s. These investments are badly needed - providing this money is targeted correctly on upgraded transit, roads and bridges that will ease congestion and improve productivity, we will see the payoff from this for decades to come.

A reality check on spending and saving

There have been lots of headlines of late about the dramatic drop in spending and "the new frugality" - and the potentially devastating effect on retailers in the period ahead.

There is no question that the retailing industry is facing a shakeout over the next twelve months. But beneath the bleak news for retailers and for the manufacturers of the goods they sell is a more positive story. Over the past twenty years, many Western countries have seen a huge increase in indebtedness along with a dramatic drop in saving rates. Part of this stemmed from today's "I want it all and I want it now" mindset - and part from the view that appreciation in houses and in stocks would offset the failure to save.

Even though we're in the early days of the economic downturn, there's reason to believe that the shift in mindset to more balance between spending and saving is more than a blip. While a painful adjustment for some in the short term, over time this will be a significant positive, as personal finances move to a more stable and sustainable footing, capacity increases to absorb unanticipated setbacks related to health or employment and there is less reliance on public funding of retirement.

This message is a theme of Jonathan Chevreau's new personal finance book Findependence Day. For more on the shift from spending to saving, see the New York Times column by Stephen Roach, Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

OPINION | November 28, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor: Dying of Consumption

By STEPHEN S. ROACH

There is a deeper, potentially positive, meaning to the decline in consumer spending: Americans are now moving back to more prudent income-based lifestyles.

One final positive development for advisors will be more realistic expectations by investors going forward. The good times of the past few years led some investors (and not a few advisors) to become complacent about risk. As recently as a year ago, clients in balanced portfolios were pushing advisors to increase their equity component and investors were looking to boost the resource stocks in their portfolios. Just as the tech bubble taught investors to be cautious about sky high valuations, so this market will leave a lasting impression on clients about the kinds of returns that can be realistically achieved without undue risk.

All of this is not to say that we don't continue to have issues ahead of us - but remember, investors want to feel better and more confident after talking to their advisors, not worse. When talking to clients, be sure to temper the gloom around us with offsetting positives.

P.S. Many thanks to Lynn Walker of CIBC Wood Gundy for drawing Winston Churchill's quote on optimists and pessimists to my attention.