Consumer Confidence Surveys – As Of June 30, 2015

Doug Short had a blog post of June 30, 2015 (“Another Gain in Consumer Confidence“) in which he presents the latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence and Thomson/Reuters University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index charts.  They are presented below: (click on charts to enlarge images) – – There are a few aspects of the above charts that I …

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Money Supply Charts Through May 2015

For reference purposes, below are two sets of charts depicting growth in the money supply. The first shows the MZM (Money Zero Maturity), defined in FRED as the following: M2 less small-denomination time deposits plus institutional money funds. Money Zero Maturity is calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Here is the “MZM …

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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 June 18, 2015 update (reflecting data through June 12) is -1.009. 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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The U.S. Economic Situation – June 23, 2015 Update

Perhaps the main reason that I write of our economic situation is that I continue to believe, based upon various analyses, that our economic situation is in many ways misunderstood.  While no one likes to contemplate a future rife with economic adversity, current and future economic problems must be properly recognized and rectified if high-quality, …

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Updates Of Economic Indicators June 2015

Here is an update of various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity. These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The June 2015 Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) updated as of June 22, 2015: – The ECRI WLI (Weekly Leading Index): As of June 19, 2015 (incorporating data through June …

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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” (pdf) report of …

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S&P500 Earnings – EPS Estimates For Years 2015, 2016 And 2017

As many are aware, Thomson Reuters 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 12 of “The Director’s Report” (pdf) of June 17, 2015, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts.  For reference, the Year …

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