Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)

The St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index (STLFSI) is one index that is supposed to measure stress in the financial system.  Its reading as of the March 5, 2015 update (reflecting data through February 27) is -1.045. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …

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Building Financial Danger – March 9, 2015 Update

On October 17, 2011 I wrote a post titled “Danger Signs In The Stock Market, Financial System And Economy.”  This post is a brief 46th update to that post. 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 …

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Deflation Probabilities – March 9, 2015 Update

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 …

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Average Hourly Earnings Trends

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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U-3 And U-6 Unemployment Rate Long-Term Reference Charts As Of March 6, 2015

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. …

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3 Critical Unemployment Charts – March 2015

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 …

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Markets During Periods Of Federal Reserve Intervention – March 6, 2015 Update

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 (through March 5, 2015) from Doug Short’s blog …

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Median Household Income Chart

I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Doug Short, in his March 4, 2015 post titled “Median Household Income Was Little Changed in January” produced the chart below.  It is based upon data from Sentier Research, and it shows both nominal and real median household incomes since 2000, as …

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