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More than 350 people attended the economic-outlook presentation, which was organized and hosted by the Doermer School of Business at IPFW, the Kelley School at IU and Greater Fort Wayne Inc.

2014 is “the best year we’ve had economically in at least five years,” Kyle Anderson of Indiana University told more than 350 people at the Hotel Fort Wayne. Anderson expects continued strong expansion in the U.S. economy of about 3 percent next year. That’s on track with the last five quarters, if you disregard the first quarter of this year, when economic activity was hobbled by deep snows and unusually cold temperatures, he said. “That’s a far better number than we’ve seen since the beginning of the Great Recession,” he said.

Charles Trzcinka, a professor of finance at the Kelley School, said that balancing the negative indicators with the encouraging ones leads him to forecast average returns in the stock market in 2015. That’s been about 7.5 percent in the last 10 years. The good signs include rising corporate earnings and falling energy prices. A $30 per barrel drop in the cost of oil depresses the financial outlook for energy businesses but puts about $1 trillion in savings in the pockets of households and businesses, he said. “What’s bad for the energy sector is good for everybody else,” Trzinka said.

At the state level, economic growth is likely to be about 2.3 percent this year, said Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center at the Kelley School. Next year, it’s likely to continue growing, but at slightly less than the forecast of 3 percent expansion in the gross domestic product. One of the best indicators for Indiana’s economic prospects is auto sales, which are likely to be about 17 million vehicles nationally, he said. That would be the biggest year for auto sales since 2006, Conover said.

Ellen Cutter, director of the Community Research Institute at IPFW, said that job growth has been very strong this year in the Fort Wayne metro area -- Allen, Whitley and Wells counties. About 6,700 jobs have been added in that area this year, an increase of about 3.2 percent, she said. That means the work force in the Fort Wayne area has almost recovered to the size it was at its peak before the recession: 218,000 jobs in 2006. If the supply of jobs expands even 1 percent next year, it will surpass that 2006 level, she said.

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