America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Each month I have been highlighting various estimates of U.S. recession probabilities. The latest update was that of April 8, 2019, titled “Recession Probability Models – April 2019.” While I don’t agree with the methodologies employed or the probabilities of impending economic weakness as depicted by these and other estimates, I do believe that the …
“Stock market capitalization to GDP” is a notable and important metric regarding stock market valuation. In February of 2009 I wrote of it in “Does Warren Buffett’s Market Metric Still Apply?” On the Doug Short site there is an update depicting this “stock market capitalization to GDP” metric. As seen in the May 2, 2019 …
On Wednesday, May 1, 2019 FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell gave his scheduled May 2019 FOMC Press Conference. (link of video and related materials) Below are Jerome Powell’s comments I found most notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – in the order they appear in the transcript. These comments are excerpted from the …
For reference purposes, below are two charts of the VIX from year 2000 through Wednesday’s (May 1, 2019) close, which had a closing value of 14.80. Here is the VIX Weekly chart, depicted on a LOG scale, with the 13- and 34-week moving averages, seen in the cyan and red lines, respectively: (click on chart …
StockCharts.com maintains long-term historical charts of various major stock market indices, interest rates, currencies, commodities, and economic indicators. As a long-term reference, below are charts depicting various stock market indices for the dates shown. All charts are depicted on a monthly basis using a LOG scale. (click on charts to enlarge images)(charts courtesy of StockCharts.com) The …
In the March 9, 2012 post (“Charts of Equities’ Performance Since March 9, 2009 And January 1, 1980“) I highlighted two charts for reference purposes. Below are those two charts, updated through the latest daily closing price. The first is a daily chart of the S&P500 (shown in green), as well as five prominent (AAPL, IBM, …
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 April 25, 2019 update (reflecting data through April 19, 2019) is -1.336. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress …
U.S. Dollar weakness is a foremost concern of mine. As such, I have extensively written about it. I am very concerned that the actions being taken to “improve” our economic situation will dramatically weaken the Dollar. Should the Dollar substantially decline from here, as I expect, the negative consequences will far outweigh any benefits. The negative impact of a substantial …
The Doug Short site had a post of April 30, 2019 (“Consumer Confidence Improved in April“) that displays 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 charts that I …
While the concept of Americans’ incomes can be defined in a number of ways, many prominent measures continue to show disconcerting trends. One prominent measure is the Employment Cost Index (ECI). Here is a description from the BLS document titled “The Employment Cost Index: what is it?“: The Employment Cost Index (ECI) is a quarterly …