America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The November NFIB Small Business Optimism report was released today, December 13, 2016. The headline of the Small Business Economic Trends report is “Special NFIB Optimism Index Finds Dramatically Different Attitudes Among Small Business Owners Before And After Election.” The Index of Small Business Optimism increased 3.5 points in November to 98.4. Here are some …
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. Below are three long-term charts, from Doug Short’s …
In the last post (“Total Household Net Worth As A Percent Of GDP 3Q 2016“) I displayed a long-term chart depicting Total Household Net Worth as a percentage of GDP. For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1945:Q4 through 2016:Q3). The last value (as of the December 8, …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk post of December 9, 2016 titled “Fed’s Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth increased in Q3.” It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 report, “Financial Accounts of the United States“: (click on chart to enlarge image) As seen in …
The December 2016 Livingston Survey published on December 9, 2016 contains, among its various forecasts, a S&P500 forecast. It shows the following price forecast for the dates shown: Dec. 31, 2016 2200.0 June 30, 2017 2254.80 Dec. 29, 2017 2314.50 Dec. 31, 2018 2400.0 These figures represent the median value across the forecasters …
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 numerous posts in this site concerning both ongoing and recent “negative developments.” These developments, as well as other exceedingly problematic conditions, have presented a highly perilous economic environment …
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 …
On December 7, 2016 the December Duke/CFO Global Business Outlook 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 – although I don’t necessarily agree with them: For the last five quarters, the Duke University/CFO …
The December 2016 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on December 8, 2016. The headline is “Economists Doubt the U.S. Can Regain Many of the Factory Jobs Lost in Recent Decades.” I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in …
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 December 1, 2016 update (reflecting data through November 25) is -1.126. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …