America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Recently Deloitte released their “CFO Signals” report for 1st Quarter 2012. As seen in page 2 of the full (pdf) report, “Ninety-four CFOs responded during the two weeks ended February 24. Over 71% are from public companies, and over 77% are from companies with more than $1B in annual revenue.” Here are some excerpts that …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, here are a few charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through February, last updated on March 28. This February value is 211,765 ($ Millions) : (click on …
Starting on May 3, 2010 I have written posts concerning the notable divergence that has occurred between the S&P500 and Chinese (Shanghai Composite) stock markets. The chart below illustrates this divergence; it shows the S&P500 vs. the Shanghai Composite on a daily basis, since 2006: (click on chart to enlarge image)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com; chart creation and annotation …
Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity. These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The March Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of March 26, 2012: – The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt from the March 22 update titled “Index …
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 20, the Zillow March 2012 Home Price Expectations Survey results were released. This survey is done on a quarterly basis. The accompanying image is seen below: (click on chart image to enlarge) As one can see from the above chart, the average expectation is that the residential real estate market, as depicted by the Case-Shiller US …
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 March 22, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 3-16-12 on a …
On March 7 the March Duke/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey (pdf) was released. It contains a variety of statistics regarding how CFOs view business and economic conditions. In this CFO Survey, I found the following to be notable excerpts: Earnings and capital spending are both expected to rise more than 7 percent. also: The employment outlook has …
On October 17, 2011 I wrote a post titled “Danger Signs In The Stock Market, Financial System And Economy.” This post is a brief eighth update to that post. My overall analysis indicates a continuing elevated and growing level of danger which contains many worldwide and U.S.-specific “stresses” of a very complex nature. I have written numerous …
The March Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on March 19, 2012. The headline is “So Far, Economy Hasn’t Slipped On Oil Prices.” The commentary largely focuses on the rising prices of oil and gasoline and the economists’ views on how they will impact the economy. Also, as seen in the Q&A section …