The s0-called “misery index”, a measure of inflation plus the unemployment rate, isn’t looking so miserable any more. For a while there we were starting to look a lot like [ … ]
Category: Chart Of The Day
(Just Charts)
Rail Traffic Continues to Pick up Steam
Rail traffic showed more signs of positive economic growth this week as intermodal traffic rose 4.9% compared with the same week last year. Total traffic was up 3.1% and the [ … ]
Chart of the Day – Government to Workers: You’re Fired!
One of the more interesting things during the recent recovery is that it has occurred almost entirely without aid from government employment. The USA lost 8.6 million jobs during [ … ]
Chart of the Day: Fed Balance Sheet Size and the S&P 500
It’s generally noted that QE and the S&P 500 have been positively correlated. But that positive correlation hasn’t remained true through all of the various QE programs. In fact, the [ … ]
NYSE Margin Debt Just Shy of New All-Time High in July
The latest reading on NYSE margin debt was just shy of an all-time high. Borrowing to execute securities trades has not waned much at all in recent months as the [ … ]
The Long View on Stocks
Here’s an interesting chart and some stats frmo Merrill Lynch on long run stock market performance. Now, if we could only solve that whole, not being alive for 189 years, [ … ]
Rail Traffic Picks Up Some Momentum
More decent news here in rail trends as we begin to see some signs of life in traffic. Intermodal jumped 6.1% year over year and total traffic was up 2.7%. [ … ]
Stock Performance and Margin Debt
Pretty interesting data here from Charles Gave (via John Mauldin): “I started in the fascinating business of trying to understand why markets go up and down in February 1971. The [ … ]
Is Household Debt Still “Too High”?
Mark Gongloff has a good piece in the Huffington Post on households and debt. He says household debt is still too high. But he looks at nominal debt levels without [ … ]