America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On Monday, February 13, John C. Williams, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, gave a speech titled “The Federal Reserve’s Mandate and Best Practice Monetary Policy.” Although I don’t agree with many aspects of the speech, I found various aspects to be notable. I would like to highlight one excerpt in particular, …
The January NFIB Small Business Optimism was released February 14. The headline of the Press Release is “Small Business Confidence in a Lull.” The Index of Small Business Optimism increased .1 points in January, rising to 93.9. Here are some excerpts from the report that I find particularly notable: Historically, optimism remains at recession levels. While owners …
The Philadelphia Fed First Quarter 2012 Survey of Professional Forecasters was released on February 10. This survey is somewhat unique in various regards, such as it incorporates a longer time frame for various measures. The survey shows, among many measures, the following expectations: GDP: (annual average level) full-year 2012 : 2.3% full-year 2013 : 2.7% full-year 2014 : …
The February Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on February 13, 2012. The headline is “Rosier View Has Familiar Ring.” The commentary largely focuses on the economic forecasts of 2011 and their accuracy, as well as thoughts as to the economic characteristics of 2012. Additionally, within the article was a link that detailed …
In the last post (“4 Confidence Charts – February 13, 2012 Update“) I displayed four charts indicating various long-term consumer and small business confidence readings as compared to the S&P500. Doug Short had a blog post of February 10 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment Declines in Preliminary Survey“) in which he presents the Conference Board and University …
Here are four charts reflecting confidence survey readings. These are from the SentimenTrader.com site. I find these charts valuable as they provide a long-term history of each survey, which is rare. Each survey chart is plotted in blue, below the S&P500: (click on each chart to enlarge image) Conference Board Consumer Confidence, last updated 1-31-12: – …
As I stated in my July 12, 2010 post (“ECRI WLI Growth History“): For a variety of reasons, I am not as enamored with ECRI’s WLI and WLI Growth measures as many are. However, I do think the measures are important and deserve close monitoring and scrutiny. The movement of the ECRI WLI and WLI, …
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the STLFSI (St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index) which is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. For reference purposes, the most recent chart is seen below. This chart was last updated on February 9, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 2-3-12 on a …
In the August 9, 2011 post (“QE3 – Various Thoughts“) I posted a chart that depicted the movements of the S&P500, 10-Year Treasury Yield and the Fed Funds rate spanning the periods of various Federal Reserve interventions since 2007. For reference purposes, here is an updated chart from Doug Short’s blog post of February 8 …
On February 7, Gallup released a poll titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Climbs for Fifth Straight Month.” A few notable excerpts: Americans’ confidence in the economy improved for the fifth month in a row in January, with Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index reaching -27, its highest point since May of last year. Americans, however, are not yet as …