Small Business Optimism

June 11, 2024 . Small business optimism rose 0.8 point in May to 90.5 after climbing 1.2 points in April.  While this is the highest level for this series this year, it is still well below the 40-year average so-called breakeven point for this series which is 98.0....

Trade Deficit

March 7, 2024 The trade deficit widened by $3.3 billion in January to $67.4 billion after having narrowed by $1.5 billion in December.  t it has been largely unchanged during the course of the past year. Exports rose $0.3 billion or 0.1% in January to $257.2 billion. ...

Corporate Profits

November 29, 2023 Corporate profits from current production (corporate profits before tax with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments) rose by $105.6 billion in the third quarter which works out to an annualized rate of increase of 3.3% after after...

Corporate Leverage

September 12, 2023 Economists like to keep an eye on the amount of leverage amongst corporations.  When corporations take on huge amounts of debt in relation to their net worth, any economic downturn will be much more severe than it would otherwise be as corporations...

Corporate Cash

September 12, 2023 Corporate cash holdings in the first half of 2020 as the government quarantine basically caused the economy to stop dead in its tracks.  Firms needed to raise money wherever they could to keep them going until such time as the virus eased its grip...

Trade-Weighted Dollar

June 9, 2022 The trade-weighted value of the dollar, which represents the value of the dollar against the currencies of a broad group of U.S. trading partners has risen 7.7% from where it was at this time last year and it is expected to continue to rise in value...