America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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 January 5, 2017 update (reflecting data through December 30, 2016) is -1.148. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other …
“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?” Doug Short has recently published a post depicting this “stock market capitalization to GDP” metric. As seen in his January 4, 2017 post titled …
There are a variety of economic models that are supposed to predict the probabilities of recession. While I don’t agree with the methodologies employed or probabilities of impending economic weakness as depicted by the following two models, I think the results of these models should be monitored. Please note that each of these models is …
Recently Deloitte released their “CFO Signals” “High-Level Summary” report for the 4th Quarter of 2016. As seen in page 2 of the report, there were 137 survey respondents. As stated: “Each quarter (since 2Q10), CFO Signals has tracked the thinking and actions of CFOs representing many of North America’s largest and most influential companies. All …
On January 3, 2017 Gallup released the poll results titled “Ahead of Election, Americans’ Confidence in Economy Steady.” Notable excerpts include: Americans ended 2016 with higher confidence in the U.S. economy than they have expressed at any other point since 2008. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index averaged +9 in December, up eight points from November. also: …
For reference purposes, below are two charts of the VIX from year 2000 through Friday’s (December 30, 2016) close, which had a closing value of 14.04. 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 …
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, …
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) …
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 …
I have written many blog posts concerning the worrisome trends in income and earnings. Doug Short, in his December 30, 2016 post titled “Real Median Household Income: Slow Growth in 2016” 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 …