America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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 2017, updated on August 25, 2017. This value is $229,161 ($ Millions): (click on charts to …
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 17, 2017 update (reflecting data through August 11, 2017) is -1.507. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other …
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 …
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, …
On August 21, 2017, the Zillow Q3 2017 Home Price Expectations Survey results were released. This survey is done on a quarterly basis. An excerpt from the press release: The panelists expect a future recession to have a moderate impact on the U.S. housing market overall, but some markets are more at risk than others. More than …
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 2017 Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) updated as of August 21, 2017: The CFNAI, with current reading of -.01: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago Fed National Activity …
On January 9, 2017 I wrote a post (“Low Interest Rates And The Formation Of Asset Bubbles“) that mentioned the “Taylor Rule.” As discussed in that post – and for other reasons – the level of the Fed Funds rate – and whether its level is appropriate – has vast importance and far-reaching consequences with …
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 August 17, 2017, titled “The Philly Fed ADS Index Business …
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 20 of the “S&P500 Earnings Scorecard” (pdf) of August 17, 2017, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts. For reference, …