Long-Term Charts Of U.S. Equity Indexes As Of April 1, 2024

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) The …

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U.S. Dollar Decline – April 1, 2024 Update

U.S. Dollar weakness is a foremost concern of mine.  As such, I have extensively written about it, including commentary on the “A Substantial U.S. Dollar Decline And Consequences” page.  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, …

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Problems Within The U.S. Economic Situation – April 1, 2024

Perhaps the main reason that I write of our economic situation is that I continue to believe, based upon various analyses, that our economic situation is in many ways misunderstood.  While no one likes to contemplate a future rife with economic adversity, current and future economic problems must be properly recognized and rectified if high-quality, …

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Consumer Confidence Surveys – As Of March 28, 2024

Advisor Perspectives had a post of March 28, 2024 (“Michigan Consumer Sentiment Reaches Highest Level Since July 2021“) that displays the latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence and University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index charts.  They are presented below: (click on charts to enlarge images) – – While I don’t believe that confidence surveys should be overemphasized, …

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Corporate Profits As A Percentage Of GDP

In the last post (“4th Quarter 2023 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 …

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4th Quarter 2023 Corporate Profits

Today’s (March 28, 2024) GDP release (Q4 2023, Third Estimate) was accompanied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Corporate Profits report (Preliminary Estimate) for the 4th 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) …

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The CFO Survey First Quarter 2024 – Notable Excerpts

On March 27, 2024 The CFO Survey was released.  It contains a variety of statistics regarding how CFOs view business and economic conditions. In the CFO Survey press release, I found the following to be the most notable excerpts – although I don’t necessarily agree with them: CFOs revised upward their expectations for real GDP growth over …

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Money Supply Charts Through February 2024

For reference purposes, below are two sets of charts depicting growth in the money supply. The first shows the M1, defined in FRED as the following: Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those …

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