3 Critical Unemployment Charts – August 2011

As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post, in my opinion the official methodologies used to measure the various job loss and unemployment statistics do not provide an accurate depiction; they serve to understate the severity of unemployment. However, even if one chooses to look at the official statistics, the following charts …

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Recession Measures – Updated

This post is the latest update to a series of blog posts seen on the CalculatedRisk.com blog.  The original blog post of April 12, 2010, is titled “Recession Measures.” In it, Bill discussed key measures that the NBER uses to determine recoveries, and posted four charts. Here are those charts, updated in his August 2, 2011 post.  The charts …

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The Stock Market – Various Technical Analysis Aspects

The following chart is annotated by Ron Walker, of thechartpatterntrader.com : (click on chart to enlarge image)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com) As one can see, it is a chart of the S&P500 on a daily basis since March of 2009.  Yesterday’s closing price of the S&P500 (1286.94) is very near the black rising trendline from the March …

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Updates On Economic Indicators July 2011

Here is an update on various indicators that are supposed to predict and/or depict economic activity.  These indicators have been discussed in previous blog posts: The July Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI)(pdf) updated as of July 25, 2011: – The Consumer Metrics Institute Contraction Watch: – The USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index: An excerpt …

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Disturbing Charts (Update 5)

I find the following charts to be disturbing.   These charts would be disturbing at any point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a tenuous situation now – 24 months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end of the recession – is especially notable. These charts raise a lot …

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Deloitte “CFO Signals” Report 2Q 2011 – Notable Aspects

Recently Deloitte released their “CFO Signals” report (pdf) for 2nd Quarter 2011. As seen in page 2 of the report, “Seventy-eight CFOs responded during the two weeks ended May 27. Three fourths are from public companies, and three-fourths are from companies with more than $1B in annual revenue.” Here are some excerpts that I found notable: …

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The July 2011 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey

The July Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published July 18, 2011.  The headline is “Dearth of Demand Seen Behind Weak Hiring.” I found various aspects of the survey to be interesting, including the following excerpts: In the survey, conducted July 8-13 and released Monday, 53 economists—not all of whom answer every question—were asked the …

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