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 64, down 2 from last month's revised number, came in below the Investing.com forecast of 67.

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All eight indexes on our world watch list have posted gains for 2017 through July 17. The top performer thus far is India's BSE SENSEX with a gain of 20.46%, followed by China's Hang Seng not far behind at 20.32%. In third is our own S&P 500 with 9.84%.

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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 are down two cents each from last week. According to GasBuddy.com, Hawaii has the highest average price for Regular at $2.99 and San Francisco, CA is the most expensive city, averaging $3.05. South Carolina has the cheapest at $1.95. The WTIC end of day spot price closed at 46.02, a 3.6% increase from this time last week.

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Note: With Friday's release of June Retail Sales and the Consumer Price Index, we've updated this commentary to include the latest Real Retail Sales. Month-over-month nominal sales in June fell by 0.2% (0.16% to two decimals). Real Retail Sales, calculated with the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index, also fell by 0.1% (0.13% to two decimals). The chart gives us a close look at the monthly data points in this series since the end of the last recession in mid-2009. The linear regression helps us identify variance from the trend.

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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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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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This morning we got the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which fell from the previous month. The diffusion index for General Business Conditions at 9.8 was a decrease of 10.0 from the previous month's 19.8. The Investing.com forecast was for a reading of 15.0.

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RecessionAlert has launched an alternative to ECRI's Weekly Leading Index Growth indicator (WLIg). 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. The latest index reading came in at 23.2, down from the previous week.

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Today's report on Industrial Production for June shows a 0.4% increase month-over-month, which was above the Investing.com consensus of 0.3%. Industrial Production peaked in November 2014, only one point higher than its pre-recession peak in November 2007. The year-over-year change is 1.97 percent, up from last month's YoY increase.

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The Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI-U) released this morning puts the year-over-year inflation rate at 1.63%. It is below the 3.76% average since the end of the Second World War and below its 10-year moving average, now at 1.75%.

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The University of Michigan Preliminary Consumer Sentiment for July came in at 3.1, down from the June Final reading of 95.1. Investing.com had forecast 95.0.

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The Census Bureau's Advance Retail Sales Report for June released this morning showed a small decrease over the May figures. Headline sales came in at -0.2% month-over-month to one decimal. Today's headline number was below the Investing.com consensus of 0.1%. Core sales (ex Autos) also came in at -0.2% MoM. Figures were revised going back to May 2016.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 1.63%, down from 1.87% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 1.70%, down from the previous month's 1.73%.

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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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Today's release of the June Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand came in at 0.1% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, up from last month's 0.0%. It is at 2.0% year-over-year, down from 2.4% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at 0.31% MoM, down from 0.3% the previous month and is up 1.9% YoY. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for -0.1% headline and 0.2% core.

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Let's have a look at a long-term perspective on Treasury yields. The chart here shows the 10-Year Constant Maturity yield since 1962 along with the Federal Funds Rate (FFR) and inflation. The range has been astonishing. The stagflation that set in after the 1973 Oil Embargo was finally ended after Paul Volcker raised the FFR to 20.06%.

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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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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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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 June. The unemployment rate ticked back up from 4.3% to 4.4%, and the number of new nonfarm jobs (a relatively volatile number subject to extensive revisions) surprised forecasts at 222K.

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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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The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for June came in at 103.6, down 0.9 from the previous month. The index is at the 93rd percentile in this series. Today's number came in below the Investing.com forecast of 104.4.

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The latest JOLTS report (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary), with data through May, 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. Nevertheless, there are some clear JOLTS correlations with the most recent business cycle trends.

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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 4.8 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 LMCI is a relatively recent indicator developed by Federal Reserve economists to assess changes in the labor market conditions. The latest LMCI update came in at 1.5, down from the previous month's revised number.

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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 222K nonfarm payrolls, which consists of a gain of 126K service-providing jobs and 20K goods-producing jobs.

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This commentary has been updated to include today's release of Nonfarm Employment. June's 222K increase in total nonfarm payrolls was accompanied by a combined 47K upward revision for April and May. The unemployment rate ticked back upward from 4.3% to 4.4%. The Investing.com consensus was for 179K new jobs and the unemployment rate to inch remain at 4.3%.

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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 June showed a 222K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, surprising forecasts. The unemployment rate ticked upward from 4.3% to 4.4%. The Investing.com consensus was for 179K new jobs and the unemployment rate to remain at 4.3%. April and May nonfarm payrolls were revised for a total gain of 47K.

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In this morning's ADP employment report we got the June estimate of 158K new nonfarm private employment jobs from ADP, a decrease over May's 230K, which was a downward revision of 23K. 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'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 $19,240 for an annualized real return of 13.16%.

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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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The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) has now released the June Non-Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), also known as the ISM Services PMI. The headline Composite Index is at 57.4 percent, up 0.5 from 56.9 last month. Today's number came in above the Investing.com forecast of 56.5 percent.

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The June US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 54.2 percent, up 0.6 percent from the May estimate. The Investing.com consensus was for 53.0 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 June estimate of 158K new nonfarm private employment jobs, a decrease over May's 230K, which was a downward revision of 23K.

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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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With the latest monthly close, the GDP Q1 Third Estimate data and the latest GNP data, we now have an updated look at the popular "Buffett Indicator" -- the ratio of corporate equities to GDP. The current reading is 128.9%, up from 123.7% the previous quarter.

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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.

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For the past few 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 65%.

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Quick take: At the end of June the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 99% above its long-term trend, unchanged from the previous month.

About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over performance turns into under performance 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. For the earnings, see the table created from Standard & Poor's latest earnings spreadsheet.

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Quick take: Based on the June S&P 500 average of daily closes, the Crestmont P/E is 112% above its arithmetic mean and at the 99th percentile of this fourteen-plus-decade monthly metric.

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Today the Institute for Supply Management published its monthly Manufacturing Report for June. The latest headline Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was 57.8 percent, an increase of 2.9 percent from 54.9 the previous month. Today's headline number was above the Investing.com forecast of 55.2 percent.

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The June US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 52.0, down from the 52.7 final May figure. Today's headline number was slightly below the Investing.com consensus of 52.1. 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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Was the March 2009 low the end of a secular bear market and the beginning of a secular bull? At this point, over eight 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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Valid until the market close on July 31, 2017.

The S&P 500 closed June with a monthly gain of 0.48% after a gain of 1.16% in May. All three S&P 500 MAs are signaling "invested" and four of the five Ivy Portfolio ETFs — Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU), iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasury (IEF), and Vanguard REIT Index ETF (VNQ) — are signaling "invested".

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The BEA's Personal Consumption Expenditures Chain-type Price Index for May, released today, shows that core inflation remains below the Federal Reserve's 2% long-term target at 1.39%. The most recent Core Consumer Price Index release, also data through May, is higher at 1.73%. The Fed is on record as using Core PCE data as its primary inflation gauge. Headline inflation for both series is conspicuously lower, largely a result of low energy costs.

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The latest Chicago Purchasing Manager's Index, or the Chicago Business Barometer, increased in June to a value of 65.7 from last month's 59.4, which was well above the Investing.com forecast of 58.0. Values above 50.0 indicate expanding manufacturing activity.

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Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) in May rose 0.47% and is up 3.5% year-over-year. However, when we adjust for inflation using the BEA's PCE Price Index, Real Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) increased to 0.53. The real number is up 2.0% year-over-year. Revisions were made going back to January.

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The BEA's Personal Income and Outlays report for May was published this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The latest Headline PCE price index fell 0.06% month-over-month (MoM) and is up 1.44% year-over-year (YoY). The latest Core PCE index (less Food and Energy) came in at 0.07% MoM and 1.39% YoY. Core PCE remains below the Fed's 2% target rate. Revisions were made going back to 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. Four of the five Ivy Portfolio ETFs — Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI), Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU), iShares Barclays 7-10 Year Treasury (IEF), and Vanguard REIT Index ETF (VNQ) — are signaling "invested", up from last month's triple "invested" signal.

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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 Q1 GDP came in at 1.4%, down from 2.1% in Q3. With a per-capita adjustment, the headline number is lower at 0.81%. 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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The Third Estimate for Q1 GDP, to one decimal, came in at 1.4% (1.42% to two decimal places), a decrease from 2.1% in the Q4 Third Estimate. Investing.com had a consensus of 1.2%.

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Today the National Association of Realtors released the May data for their Pending Home Sales Index. According to the National Association of Realtors®, "The supply shortages that are boosting home prices in many metro areas caused pending home sales in May to slump for the third consecutive month."

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With today's release of the April S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, we learned that seasonally adjusted home prices for the benchmark 20-city index were up 0.3% month over month. The seasonally adjusted national index year-over-year change has hovered between 4.2% and 5.8% for the last twenty-six months. Today's S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index (Nominal) reached another new high.

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Note: The NYSE has released new data for margin debt, now available through May. The latest debt level is down 1.7% month-over-month. The May data gives us an additional sense of recent investor behavior.

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Earlier today 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. In the charts the gray line shows the goods orders divided by the Census Bureau's monthly population data, giving us durable goods orders per capita. The blue line goes a step further and adjusts for inflation based on the Producer Price Index for All Commodities, chained in today's dollar value.

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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 June is 14.36, down from last month's 16.2. It has been in positive territory for eight consecutive months.

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Reports from Fifth District manufacturers improved in June, according to the latest survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The composite manufacturing index rose from 1 in May to 7 in June, as the indexes for shipments and new orders increased. Investing.com had forecast 4. Because of the highly volatile nature of this index, we include a 3-month moving average to facilitate the identification of trends, now at 9.3, indicates expansion.

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The latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index was released this morning based on data collected through June 15. The headline number of 118.9 was an increase from the final reading of 117.6 for May, a downward revision from 117.9. Today's number was above the Investing.com consensus of 116.0.

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The Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, which we reported on this 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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This morning the Dallas Fed released its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey (TMOS) for June. The latest general business activity index came in at 15.0, down slightly from 17.2 in May.

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The latest new orders number at -1.1% month-over-month (MoM) was worse than the Investing.com consensus of -0.6%. The series is up 2.7% year-over-year (YoY). If we exclude transportation, "core" durable goods came in at 0.1% MoM, which was below the Investing.com consensus of 0.5%. The core measure is up 5.5% YoY.

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"Index points to slower economic growth in May." This is the headline for today's release of the Chicago Fed's National Activity Index, and here is the opening paragraph from the report: "Led by declines in production-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) moved down to –0.26 in May from +0.57 in April."

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This morning's release of the May New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 610K, up 2.9% month-over-month from a revised 593K in April. Seasonally adjusted estimates for back to February were also revised. The Investing.com forecast was for 597K.

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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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The latest index came in at 11.0, up from last month's 8.0, which indicates that activity expanded further in June. The future outlook decreased to 25.0 from 30.0 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) forApril. U.S. house prices were up 0.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted nominal basis from the previous month. Year-over-year the index is up 6.9% (nonseasonally adjusted). Seasonally adjusted, the index is up 5.16% 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-April, 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 May Existing-Home Sales increased from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.62 million units. The April count was revised slightly downward from 5.57 million to 5.56 million. The Investing.com consensus was for 5.55 million. The latest number represents a 1.1% increase from the previous month and a 2.7% increase year-over-year.

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The Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through April. "Travel on all roads and streets changed by 1.2% (3.3 billion vehicle miles) for April 2017 as compared with April 2016." The less volatile 12-month moving average was up 0.1% month-over-month and 0.8% year-over-year. If we factor in population growth, the 12-month MA of the civilian population-adjusted data (age 16-and-over) is up just 0.04% month-over-month and up only 0.2% year-over-year.

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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 — 73.0% above the 2009 trough. The nominal Q1 net worth is up 2.5% from the previous quarter and 8.3% year-over-year.

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The U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, also known as the FT-900, is published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis with data going back to 1992. The monthly reports include revisions that go back several months. This report details U.S. exports and imports of goods and services.

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With the release of today's report on April Personal Incomes and Outlays, we can now take a closer look at "Real" Disposable Personal Income Per Capita. At two decimal places, the nominal 0.34% month-over-month change in disposable income was trimmed to 0.15% when we adjust for inflation. The year-over-year metrics are 2.94% nominal and 1.21% real. The trend since 2013 has been one of steady growth.

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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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As a result of the housing and mortgage crisis of the Great Recession, economists have been paying more attention to the liabilities portion of household balance sheets. Among the New York Federal Reserve Board's many economic reports is the Household Debt and Credit report, which is released quarterly with data going back to 2003.

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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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Over the last decade, the general trend has been consistent: The rate of home ownership continues to decline. The Census Bureau has now released its latest quarterly report with data through Q1 2017. The seasonally adjusted rate for Q1 is 63.6 percent, down fractionally from 63.7 in Q4 2016. The nonseasonally adjusted Q1 number is also 63.6 percent, fractionally above the Q2 number and its highest since Q4 2015.

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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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In response to a standing request, here is updated comparison of four major secular bear markets. The numbers are through the Tuesday, April 25 close, almost 100 days into the new administration. It will be interesting to see how the market fares in the wake of President's economic policies.

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We present our seasonal heating oil update which we will be following this closely throughout the season. The latest price of home heating oil nationwide is $2.59, down another two cents from last week and up 29 cents per gallon since the start of the season.

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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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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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Last week we posted an update on the median household income 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. Let's now look at the actual purchasing power of those median incomes. For this adjustment we're using the "C2ER Cost of Living Index" produced by C2ER, the Council for Community and Economic Research.

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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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What is the value of education for household income? The Census Bureau's annual survey data for 2015 published last week gives us some interesting insights into this question. The median income for all households with a householder age 25 and older was $58,044. 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. $58.0K 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 last week. 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 2015.

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Yesterday we updated our commentary on household income distribution to include the Census Bureau's release of the 2015 annual data. Our focus was on arithmetic mean (average) household incomes by quintile (and the top 5%) over the 49-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 now released its annual report on household income data for 2015. Last year the median (middle) household income rose to $56,516, a 5.2% increase over 2014 and a record high. Interestingly enough, median income adjusted for inflation is 2.2% below its peak of $57,790 set before the turn of the century in 1999. The mean (average) household income set a new high of $79,263. 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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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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Tim Manni, the Managing Editor 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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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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