America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On December 1, 2015 Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Monthly Economic Confidence Remains Level in November.” Notable excerpts include: Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index averaged -13 in November, similar to the monthly averages since July. This is down noticeably from +3 in January, the highest monthly average Gallup has found since 2008, and in …
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 …
“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 November 27, 2015 post titled …
Doug Short had a blog post of November 25, 2015 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment: November Final Survey Drops from Preliminary“) 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 …
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 November 25, 2015 update (reflecting data through November 20) is -.822. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …
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 October, updated on November 25, 2015. This value is $238,976 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge images) …
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 …
As a reference for long-term house price index trends, below is a chart, updated with the most current data (through September) from the CalculatedRisk blog post of November 24, 2015 titled “Real Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio in September”: (click on chart to enlarge image) _____ The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation SPX …
In the last post (“3rd Quarter 2015 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 GDP release (Q3, 2nd Estimate)(pdf) was accompanied by the BLS Corporate Profits report for the 3rd 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) showing the Corporate Profits After Tax (last updated November 24, 2015, …