erika miller has a closer look. >> reporter: finally, some good news from the world's largest consumer electronics chain. yes, the company reported a big loss of $409 million in the latest quarter. but that's a lot better than the $1.7 billion it lost in the same quarter the prior year. but most analysts we pleased with the results. >> i do think the company has still got a long road ahead of itself. i do think they face very serious competition from the likes of amazon, costco and wal- mart. but i do think the company is in a better place today than it was a year. >> reporter: in addition, the company's founder richard schultze appears to have abandoned plans to buy the company, providing more certainty about leadership. investors are growing more confident current c.e.o. hubert joly's turnaround plan is working. among the positives in today's earnings report: better than expected profit margins, as well as an 11% increase in u.s. online sales. and earlier this week, the company announced a $725 million cost cutting plan. best buy also plans to revamp its website. so, is now a good ti

erika miller, "n.b.r.," new york. >> susie: for more about the economy, growth and the sequester, we turn to robert brusca, chief economist at fact and opinion research. hi, bob, how are you doing? >> fine, susie, thank you. >> susie: all right so, we've been talking a lot about how the economy did in the last three months of 2012 but how about right now, the current quarter? how would you describe the health of the economy right now? >> well, right now i would say confused. we have some positive indicators. we have some negative indicaters. we have had some recent indicators that were a little bit better than we expected but they're still in the good. consumer confidence, for example s a little bit better than we thought. it's still very weak. federal reserve has a survey of manufacturing in february, you look at the five districts that report, some of them are, one of them at least is pretty strong. but the others are quite weak. so you've a lot of mixed numbers here. the one thing people are looking at that are kind of encouraged are the somewhat sporadic decline in job its claims