Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)

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 April 18, 2024 update (reflecting data through April 12, 2024) is -.8186: source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St. Louis Fed Financial Stress Index [STLFSI4], retrieved from FRED, …

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Trends Of S&P500 Earnings Forecasts

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 April …

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S&P500 EPS Forecasts For 2023-2026 As Of April 12, 2024

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 April 12, 2024, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts.  For reference, the …

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Standard & Poor’s S&P500 EPS Estimates 2024 – 2025 – April 9, 2024

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 April 9, 2024: Year 2024 estimates add to the following: -From a “bottom up” perspective, operating earnings of $240.93/share …

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Charts Indicating Economic Weakness – April 2024

Throughout this site there are many discussions of economic indicators.  This post is the latest in a series of posts indicating facets of U.S. economic weakness or a notably low growth rate. The level and trend of economic growth is especially notable at this time. As seen in various sources, recession estimates have been at elevated levels. As seen …

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Building Financial Danger – April 8, 2024 Update

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 …

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Stock Market Capitalization To GDP – Through Q4 2023

“Stock market capitalization to GDP” is a notable and important metric regarding stock market valuation.  In February of 2009 I wrote of it in “Does Warren Buffett’s Market Metric Still Apply?” On the Advisor Perspectives’ site there is an update depicting this “stock market capitalization to GDP” metric. As seen in the April 3, 2024 …

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Average Hourly Earnings

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 …

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