America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
On March 12, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “Uncle Sam’s Teaser Rate.” The subtitle is “Low interest rates disguise the federal debt bomb.” I find this editorial notable as it highlights a variety of important issues that lack recognition, including the refinancing schedule of U.S. Treasury debt, the sensitivity of debt interest …
On March 13, Gallup released a poll titled “U.S. Economic Confidence Matches Best in Four Years.” A few notable excerpts: U.S. economic confidence improved sharply to -18 in the week ending March 11 from -25 the prior week — the highest since the week ending Feb. 13, 2011, when it was also -18. The -18 readings …
In the February 7 (“The VIX Level Of 20 And Its Continual Significance“) as well as the February 6 (“Notable Technical And Sentiment Extremes In The Stock Market“) posts I discussed various notable aspects of the stock market, ones that I viewed as problematic and worrisome. In this post, I would like to provide an …
As I stated in my July 12, 2010 post (“ECRI WLI Growth History“): For a variety of reasons, I am not as enamored with ECRI’s WLI and WLI Growth measures as many are. However, I do think the measures are important and deserve close monitoring and scrutiny. The movement of the ECRI WLI and WLI, …
In the March 8 post (“Total Household Net Worth As A Percent Of GDP 4Q 2011“) I displayed a long-term chart depicting Total Household Net Worth as a percentage of GDP. For reference purposes, here is Total Household Net Worth from a long-term perspective (from 1949:Q4 to 2011:Q4). The last value (as of March 9, …
Shortly after each monthly employment report I have been posting a continual series titled “3 Critical Unemployment Charts.” Of course, there are many other employment charts that can be displayed as well. For reference purposes, below are the U-3 and U-6 Unemployment Rate charts from a long-term historical perspective. Both charts are from the St. …
As I have commented previously, as in the October 6, 2009 post (“A Note About Unemployment Statistics”), 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 …
On March 28, 2011 I wrote a post (“The STLFSI“) about the STLFSI (St. Louis Fed’s Financial Stress Index) which is supposed to measure stress in the financial system. For reference purposes, the most recent chart is seen below. This chart was last updated on March 8, incorporating data from 12-31-93 to 3-2-12 on a …
Three years ago today the S&P500 made its daily low close of 676.53. (It made the ultimate intraday low of 666.79 on the prior trading day, March 6, 2009). Many, including myself, consider March 9, 2009 as the start of this stock market advance. There are two charts I would like to highlight as …
The following chart is from the CalculatedRisk blog post of March 8, 2012 titled “Fed’s Flow of Funds: Household Real Estate Value declined $213 billion in Q4.” It depicts Total Household Net Worth as a Percent of GDP. The underlying data is from The Federal Reserve Flow of Funds 4Q 2011 report: (click on chart to enlarge image) As …