Early last year, I did an entry asking what letter would best fit the recession. Would it take a U, V, L or W shape? Or worse still, an X shape.

It's worth revisiting that question now that everyone is tipping a recovery including George Soros who says the US economy has bottomed out and will start showing signs of growth.

But it won't feel like a recovery. Productivity is up but that's only because of businesses cutting hours. The buying power of consumers has fallen and while unemployment has slipped down a fraction to 9.4%, that's only because fewer people are looking for jobs. Furthermore, a growing number of people are now waiting at least half a year until they find another job. "It's going to be a recovery only a statistician can love," Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner told the Washington Post.

So what kind of of letter will this recession take? I suspect things will be very up and down and in particular, there is a concern about what will happen after October when the stimulus starts to wear off.

You would have to agree with MarketWatch chief economist Irwin Kellner who says it will probably be a W-shaped recession. Kellner says: "Lack of jobs will combine with lost wealth, high debts and low savings, less lending, excess capacity in real estate and production, and premature efforts to remove liquidity and reduce the budget deficit to cause the nascent upswing to stall."

Which means there will be lots of fake recoveries ahead.