Four of eight indexes on our world watch list have posted gains through Monday, April 16, 2018. The top performer this year is India's BSE SENSEX with a gain of 1.46%. In second is Hong Kong's Hang Seng with a gain of 1.33%. In third is our own S&P 500 with a fractional gain of 0.16%. Coming in last is London's FTSE 100 with a loss of 6.37%.

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It's time again for our weekly gasoline update based on data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The price of Regular and Premium were up a nickel each from last week. According to GasBuddy.com, California has the highest average price for Regular at $3.55 and San Francisco, CA is the most expensive city, averaging $3.68. Oklahoma has the cheapest at $2.40. The WTIC end of day spot price closed at 66.22, a 4.4% increase from this time last week.

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Note: With the release of March Retail Sales and Consumer Price Index, we've updated this commentary to include the latest Real Retail Sales. Month-over-month nominal sales in March increased by 0.6% (0.62% to two decimals). Real Retail Sales, calculated with the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index, increased by 0.54%.

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The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook. The latest reading of 69 is down from last month's number. Investing.com had a forecast of 71.

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The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for March was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.6% month-over-month to one decimal. Today's headline number was above the Investing.com consensus of 0.4%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.2% MoM. January and February figures were revised.

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This morning we got the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The diffusion index for General Business Conditions at 15.80 was a decrease of 6.7 from the previous month's 22.5. The Investing.com forecast was for a reading of 22.50.

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This is the second in a multi-part series where we examine pundits' opinions and predictions on the latest topics.

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The latest JOLTS report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary), with data through February, is now available. The time frame is quite limited compared to the main BLS data series in the monthly employment report, many of which go back to 1948, and the enormously popular Nonfarm Employment (PAYEMS) series goes back to 1939, while the BLS began tracking JOLTS in December 2000.

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The University of Michigan Preliminary Consumer Sentiment for April came in at 97.8, down 3.6 from the March Final reading of 101.4. Investing.com had forecast 100.6.

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The 20th century Baby Boom was one of the most powerful demographic events in the history of the United States. We've created a series of charts to show seven age cohorts of the employed population from 1948 to the present. What we see is essentially the "Boomer Bulge" in employment across time. Those born between 1946 and 1964 continue to grow the employment of the two oldest cohorts. It will be interesting to see how long those two trends continue.

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We've updated this series to include this week's release of the Consumer Price Index as the deflator and the March monthly update. The latest hypothetical real (inflation-adjusted) annual earnings are at $37,778, down 13.0% from 45 years ago.

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The Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI-U) released yesterday puts the year-over-year inflation rate at 2.36%. It is below the 3.76% average since the end of the Second World War and above its 10-year moving average, now at 1.65%.

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Here is a table showing the annualized change in Headline and Core CPI, not seasonally adjusted, for each of the past six months. Also included are the eight components of Headline CPI and a separate entry for Energy, which is a collection of sub-indexes in Housing and Transportation. We can make some inferences about how inflation is impacting our personal expenses depending on our relative exposure to the individual components.

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Economists at the NY Federal Reserve Bank introduced a new measure of trend inflation in September 2017, the Underlying Inflation Gauge (UIG), meant to complement the current standard measures. Investors and policymakers alike have an interest in the behavior of inflation over longer time periods. The latest full set UIG for March is 3.14% while the prices-only measure is 2.23%. Current Headline CPI is now 2.36% and Core CPI is 2.11%.

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Millennials make up the largest percentage of our population today, yet have seen some of the lowest labor force participation growth and highest unemployment out of all age groups since the turn of the century. This has larger implications when coupled with slow wage growth, high home prices, and mounting student debt.

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Let's do some analysis of the Consumer Price Index, the best known measure of inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) divides all expenditures into eight categories and assigns a relative size to each. The pie chart illustrates the components of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, the CPI-U.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 2.36%, up from 2.21% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 2.12%, up from the previous month's 1.85% and above the Fed's 2% PCE target.

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In July of 2015, CNN Money featured an article with the optimistic and intriguing title "More American teens are getting jobs. That's good for everyone." After reading the article, we revised one of our monthly charts on Labor Force Participation to include the age 16-19 cohort -- one we elsewhere combine with the 20-24 year-olds. We've updated this article to include the latest employment data.

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We've updated our monthly workforce analysis to include last week's Employment Report for February. The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, and the number of new nonfarm jobs (a relatively volatile number subject to extensive revisions) came in at 103K.

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Note: This commentary has been updated with the latest numbers from last week's Employment Report.

This is not the scenario that would have been envisioned a generation ago for the "Golden Years" of retirement. Consider: Today nearly one in three of the 65-69 cohort and about one in five of the 70-74 cohort are in the labor force.

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Today's release of the March Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand came in at 0.3% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, up from last month's 0.2%. It is at 3.0% year-over-year, up from 287% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) also came in at 0.3% MoM, up from the previous month and is up 2.7% YoY NSA. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for 0.1% headline and 0.2% core.

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The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is a simple computation: You take the Civilian Labor Force (people age 16 and over employed or seeking employment) and divide it by the Civilian Noninstitutional Population (those 16 and over not in the military and or committed to an institution). The result is the participation rate expressed as a percent.

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What are the long-term trends for multiple jobholders in the US? The Bureau of Labor Statistics has two decades of historical data to enlighten us on that topic, courtesy of Table A-16 in the monthly Current Population Survey.

At present, multiple jobholders account for just 5.2 percent of civilian employment. The survey captures data for four subcategories of the multi-job workforce, the current relative sizes of which we've illustrated in a pie chart.

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Let's take a close look at Friday's employment report numbers on Full and Part-Time Employment. Buried near the bottom of Table A-9 of the government's Employment Situation Summary are the numbers for Full- and Part-Time Workers, with 35-or-more hours as the arbitrary divide between the two categories. The source is the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) of households. The focus is on total hours worked regardless of whether the hours are from a single or multiple jobs.

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The Department of Labor has monthly data on employment by industry categories reaching back to 1939. At the highest level, all jobs are categorized in either Service-Providing Industries or Goods Producing Industries. The adjacent chart illustrates the ratio of the two since 1939. The latest monthly employment report showed a gain of 103K nonfarm payrolls, which consists of a gain of 88K service-providing jobs and a gain of 15K goods-producing jobs.

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This commentary has been updated to include this morning's release of Nonfarm Employment. March's 193K increase in total nonfarm payrolls was accompanied by downward revisions of 50K. The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. The Investing.com consensus was for 193K new jobs and the unemployment rate to tick down to 4.0%.

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What does the ratio of unemployment claims tell us about where we are in the business cycle and our current recession risk? At present, the ratio for Continued Claims has been trending down. Excluding the 1981 recession, the Initial Claims trough lead time for a recession has ranged from 7 to 22 months with an average of 12 months if we include the 1981 recession and 14 months if we exclude it. Admittedly, the last recession is an extreme example, but the Initial Claims trough preceded its December 2007 onset by a whopping 22 months.

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This morning's employment report for March showed a 103K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was worse than forecasts. The unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. The Investing.com consensus was for 193K new jobs and the unemployment rate to drop to 4.0%.

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The Weekly Leading Economic Index (WLEI) uses fifty different time series from these categories: Corporate Bond Composite, Treasury Bond Composite, Stock Market Composite, Labor Market Composite, Credit Market Composite.

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The last couple of years have been remarkable ones for yields. The 10-year note hit its historic closing low of 1.37% in July of 2016 and then rose 154 BPs to its interim high of 2.91% in mid-February of this year. The yield on the 10-year note to date is 2.74% as of the March 29 close.

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Here's an interesting set of charts that will especially resonate with those of us who follow economic and market cycles. Imagine that five years ago you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500. How much would it be worth today, with dividends reinvested but adjusted for inflation? The purchasing power of your investment has increased to $18,495 for an annualized real return of 12.36%.

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The Philly Fed's Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index (hereafter the ADS index) is a fascinating but relatively little known real-time indicator of business conditions for the U.S. economy, not just the Third Federal Reserve District, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. Thus it is comparable to the better-known Chicago Fed's National Activity Index.

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In response to a standing request, here is updated comparison of four major secular bear markets. The numbers are through the Thursday, March 29 close.

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This update is in response to a standing request for real (inflation-adjusted) charts of the S&P 500, Dow 30, and Nasdaq Composite. Here are two overlays — one with the nominal price, excluding dividends, and the other with the price adjusted for inflation based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (which is usually just referred to as the CPI).

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In this morning's ADP employment report we got the March estimate of 241K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP, a decrease over February's revised 246K. The popular spin on this indicator is as a preview to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the ADP report includes a wealth of information that's worth exploring in more detail.

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Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis.

• The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio
• The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor
• The Q Ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost
• The relationship of the S&P Composite price to a regression trendline

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Our monthly market valuation updates have long had the same conclusion: US stock indexes are significantly overvalued, which suggests cautious expectations on investment returns. In a "normal" market environment -- one with conventional business cycles, Federal Reserve policy, interest rates and inflation -- current valuation levels would be a serious concern.

But these are different times.

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The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) has now released the March Non-Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), also known as the ISM Services PMI. The headline Composite Index is at 58.8 percent, down 0.7 from 59.5 last month. Today's number came in below the Investing.com forecast of 59.0 percent.

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The March US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 54.0 percent, down 1.9 from the final February estimate of 55.9. The Investing.com consensus was for 54.3 percent. Markit's Services PMI is a diffusion index: A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector; below 50 indicates contraction.

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Today we have the ADP March estimate of 241K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over February's revised 246K.

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Let's take a closer look at recent activity in US Treasuries. The yield on the 10-year note ended Tuesday at 2.79% and the 30-year bond closed at 3.02%. The 2-10 yield spread is now at 0.51%.

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For the past several years, we've been following a couple of transportation metrics: Vehicle Miles Traveled and Gasoline Volume Sales. For both series, we focus on the population adjusted data. Let's now do something similar with the Light Vehicle Sales report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This data series stretches back to January 1976. Since that first data point, the Civilian Noninstitutional Population Age 16 and Over (i.e., driving age not in the military or an inmate) has risen about 66%.

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With the latest monthly close and the GDP Q4 Third Estimate data, we now have an updated look at the popular "Buffett Indicator" -- the ratio of corporate equities to GDP. The current reading is 136.4%, up from 131.4% the previous quarter.

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Was the March 2009 low the end of a secular bear market and the beginning of a secular bull? At this point, nine years later, the S&P 500 has set a series of inflation-adjusted record highs based on monthly averages of daily closes. Let's examine the past to broaden our understanding of the range of historical trends in market performance. An obvious feature of this inflation-adjusted series is the pattern of long-term alternations between up-and down-trends.

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The Q Ratio is a popular method of estimating the fair value of the stock market developed by Nobel Laureate James Tobin. It's a fairly simple concept, but laborious to calculate. The Q Ratio is the total price of the market divided by the replacement cost of all its companies. This update includes the latest monthly close and GDP data.

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Quick take: At the end of March the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 112% above its long-term trend, down from 114% the previous month.

About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over performance turns into underperformance and vice versa. Is there a pattern to this movement? Let's apply some simple regression analysis to the question.

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Here is the latest update of a popular market valuation method using the most recent Standard & Poor's "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates and the index monthly average of daily closes for the past month.

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Note: The NYSE has suspended their NYSE Member Firm margin data as of December 2017. We have replaced our Margin Debt data with FINRA data, which includes data for all firms, not just NYSE member firms.

FINRA has released new data for margin debt, now available through February. The latest debt level is down 3.1% month-over-month. The February data gives us an additional sense of recent investor behavior.

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Today the Institute for Supply Management published its monthly Manufacturing Report for March. The latest headline Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was 59.3 percent, a decrease of 1.5 percent from 60.8 the previous month. Today's headline number was below the Investing.com forecast of 60.1 percent.

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The March US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 55.6, up from the 55.3 final February figure. Today's headline number came in below the Investing.com consensus of 55.7. Markit's Manufacturing PMI is a diffusion index: A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector; below 50 indicates contraction.

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Quick take: Based on the March S&P 500 average of daily closes, the Crestmont P/E is 126% above its arithmetic mean and at the 99th percentile of this fourteen-plus-decade monthly metric.

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Valid until the market close on April 30, 2018.

The S&P 500 closed March with a monthly loss of 2.69% after a loss of 3.89% in February. All three S&P 500 MAs are signaling "invested" and three of five Ivy Portfolio ETFs — Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU), and PowerShares DB Commodity Index (DBC) — are signaling "invested".

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The BEA's Personal Consumption Expenditures Chain-type Price Index for February, released this morning, shows that core inflation remains below the Federal Reserve's 2% long-term target at 1.60%. The most recent Core Consumer Price Index release, also data through February, is higher at 1.85%. The Fed is on record as using Core PCE data as its primary inflation gauge.

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With the release of this morning's report on February Personal Incomes and Outlays, we can now take a closer look at "Real" Disposable Personal Income Per Capita. At two decimal places, the nominal 0.32% month-over-month change in disposable income was trimmed to 0.13% when we adjust for inflation. The year-over-year metrics are 3.20% nominal and 1.43% real.

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The latest Chicago Purchasing Manager's Index, or the Chicago Business Barometer, fell in March to a value of 57.4 from 61.9 in February, which was below the Investing.com forecast of 62.1. Values above 50.0 indicate expanding manufacturing activity.

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Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) in February rose 0.48% and is up 3.9% year-over-year. However, when adjusted for inflation using the BEA's PCE Price Index, Real Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) MoM was at 0.29%. The real number is up 2.1% year-over-year. Revisions were made to figures for October through January.

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The BEA's Personal Income and Outlays report for February was published this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The latest Headline PCE price index was up 0.19% month-over-month (MoM) and is up 1.75% year-over-year (YoY). The latest Core PCE index (less Food and Energy) came in at 0.23% MoM and 1.60% YoY. Core PCE remains below the Fed's 2% target rate. Revisions were made to figures for October through January.

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Here is an advance preview of the monthly moving averages we track after the close of the last business day of the month. At this point, before the close on the last day of the month, all three S&P 500 strategies are signaling "invested" — unchanged from last month's triple "invested" signal. Three out of five Ivy Portfolio ETFs — Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU), and PowerShares DB Commodity Index (DBC) — are signaling "invested", unchanged from last month's triple "invested" signal.

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The latest price of home heating oil nationwide is $3.10, up a nickel from last week and up 43 cents since the beginning of the season.

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The accompanying chart is a way to visualize real GDP change since 2007. It uses a stacked column chart to segment the four major components of GDP with a dashed line overlay to show the sum of the four, which is real GDP itself. Here is the latest overview from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Earlier today we learned that the Third Estimate for Q4 GDP came in at 2.9%, down from 3.2% in Q3. With a per-capita adjustment, the headline number is lower at 2.1%. The adjacent chart includes an exponential regression through the data using the Excel GROWTH function to give us a sense of the historical trend. The regression illustrates the fact that the trend since the Great Recession has a visibly lower slope than the long-term trend.

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Today the National Association of Realtors released the February data for their Pending Home Sales Index. According to the National Association of Realtors®, "Pending home sales snapped back in much of the country in February, but weakening affordability and not enough inventory on the market restricted overall activity compared to a year ago."

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The Third Estimate for Q4 GDP, to one decimal, came in at 2.9% (2.89% to two decimal places), a decrease from 3.2% for the Q3 Third Estimate. Investing.com had a consensus of 2.7%.

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Friday morning, the Census Bureau posted the Advance Report on Durable Goods New Orders. This series dates from 1992 and is not adjusted for either population growth or inflation. Let's now review Durable Goods data with two adjustments.

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Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia. The average of the five for March is 20.9, down from the previous month's 21.1.

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The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, which we reported on yesterday morning, is based on 85 economic indicators drawn from four broad categories of data:

• Production and Income
• Employment, Unemployment, and Hours
• Personal Consumption and Housing
• Sales, Orders, and Inventories

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The latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index was released this morning based on data collected through March 15. The headline number of 127.7 was a decrease from the final reading of 130.0 for February, a downward revision from 130.8. Today's number was below the Investing.com consensus of 131.0.

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With today's release of the January S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, we learned that seasonally adjusted home prices for the benchmark 20-city index were up 0.75% month over month. The seasonally adjusted national index year-over-year change has hovered between 4.2% and 6.3% for the last two-plus years. Today's S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index (nominal) reached another new high.

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Fifth District manufacturing expanded at a slower pace in March, according to the most recent survey results from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Because of the highly volatile nature of this index, we include a 3-month moving average to facilitate the identification of trends, now at 20.7 which indicates expansion.

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This morning the Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) for March. The latest general business activity index came in at 21.4, a decrease from 37.2 in February.

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Friday morning's release of the February New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 618K, down 0.6% month-over-month from a revised 622K in January. The Investing.com forecast was for 623K.

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"Index points to a pickup in economic growth in February." This is the headline for this morning's release of the Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, and here is the opening paragraph from the report: "Led by improvements in production-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) rose to +0.88 in February from +0.02 in January."

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The latest new orders number at 3.1% month-over-month (MoM) was better than the Investing.com consensus of 1.5%. The series is up 8.9% year-over-year (YoY). If we exclude transportation, "core" durable goods came in at 1.2% MoM, which was better than the Investing.com consensus of 0.5%. The core measure is up 8.1% YoY.

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The latest index came in at 17, unchanged from last month, which indicates that activity expanded in March. The future outlook decreased to 33 from 38 last month. Here is a snapshot of the complete Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey.

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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its U.S. House Price Index (HPI) for January. U.S. house prices were up 0.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted nominal basis from the previous month. Year-over-year the index is up 7.3% (nonseasonally adjusted). Seasonally adjusted, the index is up 5.60% year-over-year.

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The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly data on volume sales is several weeks old when it released. The latest numbers, through mid-January, are now available. However, despite the lag, this report offers an interesting perspective on fascinating aspects of the US economy. Gasoline prices and increases in fuel efficiency are important factors, but there are also some significant demographic and cultural dynamics in this data series.

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This morning's release of the February Existing-Home Sales increased from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.54 million units. The Investing.com consensus was for 5.41 million. The latest number represents a 3.0% increase from the previous month and a 1.1% increase year-over-year.

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The bitcoin and cryptocurrency craze has everyone talking. Here's what some of the big names in the industry are saying.

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Over the long haul the two series offer a compelling study of trends in residential real estate. Here is an overlay of the two series since the 1959 inception of the Starts data and the Permits data, which began being tracked a year later. The monthly data points are preserved as faint dots. The trends are illustrated with 6-month moving averages of data divided by the Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates.

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Pop Quiz! Without recourse to your text, your notes or a Google search, what line item is the largest asset in Uncle Sam's financial accounts?

• A) U.S. Official Reserve Assets
• B) Total Mortgages
• C) Taxes Receivable
• D) Student Loans

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Let's take a long-term view of household net worth from the latest Z.1 release. A quick glance at the complete data series shows a distinct bubble in net worth that peaked in Q4 2007 with a trough in Q1 2009, the same quarter the stock market bottomed. The latest Fed balance sheet shows a total net worth at an all-time high — 76.7% above the 2009 trough. The nominal Q4 net worth is up 2.1% from the previous quarter and up 7.8% year-over-year.

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The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for February came in at 107.6, up 0.7 from the previous month, and its second all-time highest. The index is at the 99th percentile in this series. Today's number came in above the Investing.com forecast of 107.1.

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Many of our readers have been experiencing 404 errors on dshort pages. These pages have not disappeared, they are merely being edited and as a result of our current process, it shows as a broken page. Please be sure to check back within a few days to see the newest update.

We are working on a new system that will prevent these errors.

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Household debt increased by $193 billion (1.5%) to $13.15 trillion in Q4. There were increases in mortgage, auto, credit card, and student loan debt and a modest decline in balances on home equity lines of credit.

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Over the last decade, the general trend has been consistent: The rate of home ownership continues to struggle. The Census Bureau has now released its latest quarterly report with data through Q4 2017. The seasonally adjusted rate for Q4 is 64.0 percent, up from 63.9 in Q3. The nonseasonally adjusted Q4 number is 64.2 percent, above the Q3 number of 63.9.

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With the Republican tax bill looming, we've updated this article to include the latest figures and estimates for federal debt and taxes.

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What is the value of education for household income? The Census Bureau's annual survey data for 2016 published this month gives us some interesting insights into this question. The median income for all households with a householder age 25 and older was $60,523. The chart below shows the median annual household income for nine cohorts by educational attainment. We've rounded the data points to the nearest $100, e.g. $60.5K for all households age 25 and older.

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The median household is the statistical center of the Middle Class. In terms of income, this class has not fared well in recent decades. Let's take a closer look at a troubling aspect of the Census Bureau's latest annual household income data, issued this month. In this update, we'll focus on the growing gap between the median (middle) and mean (average) household incomes across the complete time frame of the Census Bureau's annual reporting, which began in 1967, to the release last month of the annual data for 2016.

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Earlier this week, we updated our commentary on household income distribution to include the Census Bureau's release of the 2016 annual data. Our focus was on arithmetic mean (average) household incomes by quintile (and the top 5%) over the 50-year history of this data series. The analysis offered some fascinating insights into U.S. household incomes. But the classification misses the implications of age for income. Households are by no means locked into the same quintile over time.

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The Census Bureau has released its annual report on household income data for 2016. Last year the median (middle) household income rose to $59,149, a 4.1% increase over 2015 and a record high. The median income adjusted for inflation is also at a record high, above the peak of $58,882 set in 2000. The mean (average) household income set a new high of $83,143. More about that in another commentary. Meanwhile, let's take a closer look at the quintile averages, which dates from 1967, along with the statistics for the top 5%.

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The LMCI is a relatively recent indicator developed by Federal Reserve economists to assess changes in the labor market conditions. As of August 3, 2017, updates of the labor market conditions index (LMCI) have been discontinuedThe LMCI is derived from a dynamic factor model that extracts the primary common variation from 19 labor market indicators.

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Keith Gumbinger, Vice President at HSH.com, features a periodic update entitled "The Salary You Must Earn to Buy a Home in 27 Metros". The key question is:

"How much salary do you need to earn in order to afford the principal and interest payments on a median-priced home in your metro area?"

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The Sentier Research median household income data for May, released this morning, came in at $59,385. The nominal median dropped $16 month-over-month and is up $2,479 year-over-year. In percentages, the latest month is down 0.03% MoM and up 4.4% YoY. Adjusted for inflation, the latest month is up $60 MoM and $1,414 YoY. The real numbers equate to changes of 0.1% MoM and 2.4% YoY. This is Sentier's last report on the topic.

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We will be offline for Thursday and Friday this week due to travel and will be publishing the missed updates the following week, after the Memorial Day holiday.

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An ETF sponsor is looking for 30 advisors to participate in an online focus group to be hosted on APViewpoint. The purpose of this focus group is to gather advisors’ observations on the ETF marketplace. Click for more info.

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If you're attending this week's Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago, come visit us at booth #360. Meet members of our team, including CEO/Editor in Chief Bob Huebscher, National Account Manager Becky Allen and dshort's Research Director Jill Mislinski.

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Many reports on the cost of education and affordability over the last decade have focused on the rapid growth of educational debt. Here we examine student aid, costs of undergraduate education, and enrollment over time. We've used data from the College Board's annual Trends in Higher Education publications. We've updated this report with the latest data.

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College Tuition and Fees constitute one of the biggest threats to our economic outlook. Here is a chart of data from the relevant Consumer Price Index sub-component reaching back to 1978, the earliest year Uncle Sam provides a breakout for College Tuition and Fees. As an interesting sidebar, we've thrown in the increase in the cost of purchasing a new car as well as the more substantial increase for the broader category of medical care, both of which pale in comparison.

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We continue our real estate research with a study on metropolitan affordability in the rental and mortgage markets. Once again, we tap into Zillow Group’s wealth of data and use a data set that includes mortgage affordability, rental affordability, and price-to-income ratios for the five most populous US cities with comparison to the national median.

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According to the Census Bureau, 84% of U.S. citizens live in Metropolitan Statistical Areas - defined as a region with at least one urbanized area of population 50,000 or more. Here we look at home values in the top five metro areas over a 20 year period using data from Zillow Group. We focus on Zillow Sales prices and the Zillow Home Value Index, a house price index that uses Zillow data.

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Note from dshort: Since the middle of the last century, there have been nine bear markets in the S&P 500 using the 20% selloff of the "bear-market" benchmark. There have been two additional corrections that came within a hair's breadth of the -20% qualification. Here are snapshots of those official bears and initial recoveries. Rather than scrolling down, you can click on a chart for an enlarged version and a slide-show of the series.

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Note from dshort: We've updated this commentary in the wake of the Census Bureau's release last month of the 2015 annual household income data from the Current Population Survey.

One of our favorite discussions on APViewpoint, which addressed "The Sad State of Happiness", included an indirect reference to a popular 2010 academic study by psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton. Their topic was the correlation between annual household income and day-to-day contentment. They analyzed more than 450,000 total responses to a Gallup weekly survey of households across the 50 states and DC. The survey was conducted in 2009.

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The Census Bureau's annual household income report for 2015 was published last month. We've now compiled a few tables for the 50 states and DC based on the Current Population Survey, a joint undertaking of the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, which includes annual data from 1984 to 2015. The details are fascinating.

First, some context. The median US income in 2015 was $56,516, up from $22,415 in 1984 — a 152% rise over the 32-year time frame.

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With the US presidential election about five weeks away, the popular press has feasted on the campaign events and survey results, with the primary focus on the Trump spectacle. The fundamental question remains: How did The Don succeed in winning the Republican Party nomination in the first place? And how could he remain in contention in the wake of his bizarre campaign rhetoric? A provocative new report from Sentier Research gives us insight into what might be the key factor in the Trump phenomenon: A secular decline in the financial well-being of white working class males and what we can infer as the resulting anger directed at the political powers that be.

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Visitors to Advisor Perspectives will recognize the S&P Composite Stock Price Index as a regular feature in our long-term charts of market and economic happenings. We're referring to the data series made popular in recent years by Yale Professor Robert Shiller, not to be confused with the S&P Composite 1500, an index that combines the S&P 500, the S&P Mid Cap 400, and the S&P Small Cap 600. Here's a an overlay of the Dow and the S&P Composite from May of 1896, the month the Dow Jones Industrial Average index of 12 stocks was established.

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With the 2016 Rio Olympics in the news and on many minds, we decided to investigate whether particular indicators were a predictor of performance.

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According to this system, the market is now tradable and a signal to enter and continue all long trading. The OEXA200R is at 84% and all three secondary indicators are positive.

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Often conversations about home buying end up in discussions on the high cost of homes today and their affordability – or lack thereof. We decided to take a look at the long-term trends in home prices in comparison to income and found that incomes have been stagnant since the early 1970s, while home prices have risen dramatically in comparison.

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The big economic news on Friday was the Department of Labor's Employment Report for March. The mainstream press focused on two numbers: the 215K new jobs and the 5% unemployment rate. Over the next few days we'll dig in a bit deeper to look at some of the underlying employment demographics, which in many ways give a greater understanding of employment conditions. But the much more significant economic news on Friday was the Federal Reserve's noon release of the disturbingly negative annual benchmark revisions to Industrial Production.

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What is the single best indicator of the American Dream? Many would point to household income growth. The Census Bureau has now published some selected annual household income data in a new report: "Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014". Last year the median (middle) household income was $53,657 — a 0.13% year-over-year increase that shrinks to -1.48% when adjusted for inflation. Let's put the new release into a larger historical context.

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Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method.There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process. We are now tracking each of the four at the following individual links:

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This is the second installment of a two-part article on P/E ratios by Ed Easterling. Ed's books, Unexpected Returns and Probable Outcomes, have our unqualified endorsement for anyone trying to understand the complex and often puzzling relationship between the economy and the market.

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We're delighted to welcome Ed Easterling with this first installment of a two-part article on P/E ratios. Ed's books, Unexpected Returns and Probable Outcomes, have our unqualified endorsement for anyone trying to understand the complex and often puzzling relationship between the economy and the market.

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