America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI) 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 13, incorporating data from December 31,1993 to March 7, …
On March 12, 2014 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 the most notable excerpts: Increasing the minimum wage nationwide to $10 per hour would lead to substantial job losses among …
I often write about interest rates and related topics as my analyses indicates that the overall bond market is an exceedingly large asset bubble. The characteristics and price levels of corporate bonds is highly noteworthy. For reference purposes, here are three bond indices and their FRED charts, as well as depictions of their spreads (as seen …
In the March 9, 2012 post (“Charts of Equities’ Performance Since March 9, 2009 And January 1, 1980“) I highlighted two charts for reference purposes. Below are those two charts, updated through yesterday’s closing price. The first is a daily chart of the S&P500 (shown in green), as well as five prominent (AAPL, IBM, WFM, SBUX, …
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 …
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, …
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 …
On October 17, 2011 I wrote a post titled “Danger Signs In The Stock Market, Financial System And Economy.” This post is a brief 34th 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 …
While I do not agree with the current readings of the measure – I think the measure dramatically understates the probability of deflation, as measured by the CPI – the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta maintains an interesting data series titled “Deflation Probabilities.” As stated on the site: Using estimates derived from Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities …