America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
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) …
On March 3, 2015 Gallup released the poll results titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Edged Down in February.” Notable excerpts include: After scoring +3 in January, the first positive reading in seven years, Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index edged down to +1 in February. The reading last month is still the second-highest monthly average since Gallup began tracking …
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 …
Doug Short had a blog post of February 27, 2015 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment Remains off Its January Peak“) 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 above …
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 …
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 January, updated on February 26, 2015. This value is 236,147 ($ Millions): (click on charts to enlarge images) …
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 February 19, 2015 update (reflecting data through February 13) is -.928. Of course, there are a variety of other measures and indices that are supposed to measure financial stress and other related …
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 12 of “The Director’s Report” (pdf) of February 23, 2015, and represent an aggregation of individual S&P500 component “bottom up” analyst forecasts. For reference, the Year …
As many are aware, Standard & Poor’s publishes earnings estimates for the S&P500. (My posts concerning their estimates can be found under the S&P500 Earnings tag) For reference purposes, the most current estimates are reflected below, and are as of February 19, 2015: Year 2015 estimates add to the following: -From a “bottom up” perspective, operating earnings of $118.32/share …