America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Doug Short had a blog post of August 28, 2015 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment: Down Slightly from August Preliminary Reading“) 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 …
One of my ongoing concerns is the level and future resiliency of the U.S. Dollar. For reference, below is a chart that I find notable. It provides a comparison of the Euro (on the top plot) to the Dollar (found on the bottom plot) on a daily basis, with price labels, over the last five …
In the last post (“2nd Quarter 2015 Corporate Profits“) I displayed, for reference purposes, a long-term chart depicting Corporate Profits After Tax. There are many ways to view this measure, both on an absolute as well as relative basis. One relative measure is viewing Corporate Profits as a Percentage of GDP. I feel that this …
Today’s GDP release (Q2, 2nd Estimate)(pdf) was accompanied by the BLS Corporate Profits report for the 2nd Quarter. Of course, there are many ways to adjust and depict overall Corporate Profits. For reference purposes, here is a chart from the St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED) showing the Corporate Profits After Tax (last updated August 27, 2015, …
For reference purposes, the chart below shows the S&P500 vs. the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index on a daily basis, since 2006, with price labels: (click on chart to enlarge image)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com; chart creation and annotation by the author) _____ The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation SPX at 1940.51 as …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, below are charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through July, updated on August 26, 2015. This value is $241,108 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge images) …
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 August 20, 2015 update (reflecting data through August 14) is -.968. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …
As a reference for long-term house price index trends, below is a chart, updated with the most current data (through June) from the CalculatedRisk blog post of August 25, 2015 titled “Real Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio in June”: (click on chart to enlarge image) _____ The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation SPX …
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 …
This post is an update to past posts regarding stock market volatility. While I track many different measures of volatility, I find the following charts to be both simple and clear in depicting the recent increased volatility in the stock market. Overall, my analyses indicates that there are many reasons for this volatility, and the volatility …