Search Results for: United States

One of the Best Indicators to Monitor for Signs a U.S. Recession Is Coming The probability of being unemployed in a given month in the United States, by dividing the average initial claims for unemployment insurance by the total number of people working, is one of the best indicators to monitor for signs a U.S.…

Why Are U.S. Banks Healthier Than Ever? U.S. banks are much stronger than ever. They have more capital and should withstand the next recession. See Fed’s annual stress test (Dodd-Frank Act Stress Tests): “The capital levels of the firms after the hypothetical severe global recession are higher than the actual capital levels of large banks…

Why Trade Tensions Are Not Driving the U.S. Stock Market? Because many Unicorns are going public in the United States this year. Secondly, U.S. banks are healthier than ever and liquidity conditions are quite good in the U.S.. So all in all, that’s far more important than trade tensions. Image: Bloomberg

Is U.S. Household Debt a Problem? Not really, right now. Actually, the level of household debt alone does not tell an accurate picture of the current situation. However, U.S. household debt to GDP is much lower, U.S. household debt service payments as a percent of disposable personal income  and U.S. household financial obligations as a percent…

Are We Near a Recession? “The leading index for each state predicts the six-month growth rate of the state’s coincident index. In addition to the coincident index, the models include other variables that lead the economy: state-level housing permits (1 to 4 units), state initial unemployment insurance claims, delivery times from the Institute for Supply…

Visualizing How Americans Spend Their Money The Consumer Expenditure Survey is a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey that collects information on the buying habits of U.S. consumers. Image: howmuch.net

Why U.S. Productivity Is Lower Than Previous Business Cycles? The real yield is the most important measure of financial tightness. But as the real yield is near zero, artificially low interest rates are then associated with unnecessary debt, zombie firms and lower productivity than previous business cycles. Zombie firms cannot invest, innovate and increase productivity. …