America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
In the last post (“2nd Quarter 2019 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 (August 29, 2019) GDP release (Q2 2019, second estimate) was accompanied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Corporate Profits report (preliminary estimate) 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) …
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 27, 2019 titled “Case-Shiller: National House Price Index increased 3.1% year-over-year in June”: _________ I post various indicators and indices because I believe they should be carefully …
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 August 2019 Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) updated as of August 26, 2019, has a current value of -.36. The CFNAI-MA3 has a current value of -.14. A chart of the …
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 July 2019, updated on August 26, 2019. This value is $250,380 ($ Millions): (click on charts to …
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, …
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 15, 2019 update (reflecting data through August 9, 2019) is -1.233. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and …
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 Money …
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, Refinitiv 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 24 of the “S&P500 Earnings Scorecard” (pdf) of August 19, 2019, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts. For reference, the …