America's Economic Future – A Discussion By Ted Kavadas
Last night President Obama made an address before the Joint Session of Congress, with regard to the American Jobs Act. (also, for reference, a September 9 Bloomberg article titled “Obama Proposes $447 Billion Jobs Stimulus Plan.”) While I don’t agree with various parts of the speech, I do find the following to be notable: …
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 …
As many are aware, Standard & Poors publishes earnings estimates for the S&P500. (My previous posts concerning their estimates can be found in the under the S&P500 Earnings tag) Currently (as of September 2), their estimates for 2011 add to the following: -From a “bottom up” perspective, operating earnings of $98.58/share -From a “top down” perspective, operating earnings of …
In the September 20, 2010 post (“Real Median Household Income & Poverty Measures“) I highlighted the lack of significant long-term growth in Real Median Household Income. As I stated in that post: …Real Median Household Income has experienced anemic growth for decades. Doug Short, in his August 30 blog post titled “U.S. Household Incomes: A …
In the September 5 edition of Barron’s, the cover story was titled “Which Way Up?” Included in the story, 15 “buy- and sell-side strategists” give various forecasts including 2011 and 2012 S&P500 EPS, S&P500 year-end price targets, GDP, and 10-Year Treasury Note Yields. As seen on page 23, “The average of their expectations” for the …
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 …
In yesterday’s post (“4 Confidence Charts – August 2011“) I displayed four charts indicating various long-term consumer and small business confidence readings as compared to the S&P500. Doug Short had a blog post of August 30 (“Conference Board: Consumer Confidence Does a Cliff Dive“) in which he presents the Conference Board and University of Michigan …
Here are four charts reflecting confidence survey readings. These are from the SentimenTrader.com site. I find these charts valuable as they provide a long-term history of each survey, which is rare. Each survey chart is plotted in blue, below the S&P500: (click on each chart to enlarge image) Conference Board Consumer Confidence, last updated 8-30-11: – …
There seems to be consensus that the stock market, as represented by the S&P500, “bottomed” during its August 9th low at 1101.54. Here is the daily 1-year chart of the S&P500 for reference: (click on chart to enlarge image)(chart courtesy of StockCharts.com) – Was that August 9 low a “true bottom” – i.e. one that …
On Friday August 26 Ben Bernanke gave a speech at Jackson Hole titled “The Near- and Longer-Term Prospects for the U.S. Economy.” I do not agree with various comments in the speech. However, here are a few excerpts that I found most noteworthy: As I will discuss, although important problems certainly exist, the growth fundamentals …