America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The January 2025 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on January 19, 2025. The headline is “Trump’s Return Nudges Economists’ Inflation Outlook Higher.” I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in the forecasts section. An excerpt: Economists are starting …
S&P500 earnings trends and estimates are a notably important topic, for a variety of reasons, at this point in time. FactSet publishes a report titled “Earnings Insight” that contains a variety of information including the trends and expectations of S&P500 earnings. For reference purposes, here are two charts as seen in the “Earnings Insight” report of January …
As many are aware, Refinitiv publishes earnings estimates for the S&P500. (My other posts concerning S&P earnings estimates can be found under the S&P500 Earnings tag) The following estimates are from Exhibit 24 of the “S&P500 Earnings Scorecard” (pdf) of January 10, 2025, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts. For reference, the …
As many are aware, Standard & Poor’s publishes earnings estimates for the S&P500. (My posts concerning their estimates can be found under the S&P500 Earnings tag) For reference purposes, the most current estimates are reflected below, and are as of January 7, 2025: Year 2024 estimates add to the following: -From a “bottom up” perspective, operating earnings of $233.24/share …
The following is the latest update of 9 charts that depict various aspects of the U.S. economic and financial situation. I find these charts portray disturbing long-term trends. These trends have been in effect for years. These charts raise a lot of questions. As well, they highlight the “atypical” nature of our economic situation from …
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Along these lines, one of the measures showing disconcerting trends is that of hourly earnings. While the concept of hourly earnings can be defined and measured in a variety of ways, below are a few charts that I believe broadly illustrate problematic …
Shortly after each monthly employment report I have been posting a continual series titled “3 Critical Unemployment Charts.” Of course, there are many other employment charts that can be displayed as well. For reference purposes, below are the U-3 and U-6 Unemployment Rate charts from a long-term historical perspective. Both charts are from the St. …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post (“A Note About Unemployment Statistics”), in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction; they serve to understate the severity of unemployment. However, even if one chooses to look at the …
The St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI4) is one index that is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. Its reading as of the January 9, 2025 update (reflecting data through January 3, 2025) is -.6291: source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index [STLFSI4], retrieved from FRED, …
My overall analysis indicates a continuing elevated and growing level of financial danger which contains many worldwide and U.S.-specific “stresses” of a very complex nature. I have written numerous posts on this site concerning both ongoing and recent “negative developments.” These developments, as well as other exceedingly problematical conditions, have presented a highly perilous economic environment …