America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk blog post of March 12, 2015 titled “Fed’s Q4 Flow of Funds: Household Net Worth at Record High.” 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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
On March 3, 2015 Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Edged Down in February.” Notable excerpts include: After scoring +3 in January, the first positive reading in seven years, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index edged down to +1 in February. The reading last month is still the second-highest monthly average since Gallup began tracking …
Doug Short had a blog post of February 27, 2015 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment Remains off Its January Peak“) 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 …
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 …
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 January, updated on February 26, 2015. This value is 236,147 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge images) …
For references purposes, below are two charts that show the trend in interest rates for various Treasuries, including the 3-Month, 2-Year, 5-Year, 7-Year, and 10-Year. A chart showing the interest rate trends of the last 20 years, on a monthly basis: (click on chart to enlarge image)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com; chart creation and annotation by …
I found various notable items in Walmart’s Q4 2015 management call transcript (pdf) dated February 19, 2015. (as well, there is Walmart’s press release of the Q4 results) I view Walmart’s results and comments as particularly noteworthy given their retail prominence and focus on low prices. I have previously commented on their quarterly management call comments; these previous posts are found under …