America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Doug Short, in his February 29, 2016 post titled “December Median Household Income at a New Post-Recession High” produced the chart below. It is based upon data from Sentier Research, and it shows both nominal and real median household incomes since 2000, …
Doug Short had a blog post of February 26, 2016 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment: February Final Slightly Better Than Forecast“) 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 …
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) and the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index (ADS Index) are two broad-based economic indicators that I regularly feature in this site. The short-term and long-term trends of each continue to be notable. Doug Short, in his blog post of February 26, 2016, titled “The Philly Fed ADS Index Business …
Many people place emphasis on Durable Goods New Orders as a prominent economic indicator and/or leading economic indicator. For reference, below are two charts depicting this measure. First, from the St. Louis Fed site (FRED), a chart through January, updated on February 25, 2016. This value is $237,465 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge …
As a reference for long-term house price index trends, below is a chart, updated with the most current data (through December) from the CalculatedRisk blog post of February 23, 2016 titled “Real Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio in December”: (click on chart to enlarge image) _____ The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation SPX …
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, …
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 …
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 February 2016 Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) updated as of February 22, 2016: (current reading of +.28; current reading of CFNAI-MA3 is -.15): – The ECRI WLI (Weekly …
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 …
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 February 18, 2016, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts. For reference, the Year …