Charts of Interest to Individual Investors

As part of my role, I come across many charts, tables and infographics conveying data about investing, the economy and personal finance. A few make their way into my commentaries but many interesting ones don’t simply because they don’t match the topic I’m writing about.

Rather than letting those charts be buried in my email inbox or my browser history, my intention is to start sharing the insightful ones. When the chart is on a publicly accessible webpage with more context provided, I include the link.

Are We Getting Closer to Disinflation?

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell is looking for signs of disinflation kicking in. The data is messy, but in general, the bond market has become less fearful about inflation staying at high levels since last summer. The chart below shows that the five-year inflation expectations are priced in by the bond market as of February 14, 2023.

It’s Still Painful to Go to the Grocery Store

HedgeyeStaples noted that meat, poultry, fish and egg prices continued to rise in December 2022. Egg prices were up 70% on a year-over-year basis and increased 8.5% in January 2023 relative to January 2022. As one bar and grill said on its sign, “the Powerball jackpot is up to 8 dozen eggs.”

Lots of Pessimism, but Pendulum Could Be Swinging Back

This January survey from Gallup confirms what the AAII Sentiment Survey and others showed over the past several months: More people expect stocks to fall than to rise. Commenting on its findings, Gallup noted, “It is possible Americans would have been even more pessimistic than now about the stock market during the Great Recession and financial crisis, when stocks lost much more value than they did in 2022. Gallup didn’t ask this question during that period but did find in April 2008 that 62%, near the record high, thought it was a bad time to invest in the stock market.”

Investment newsletter writers have been cautious too, even though the optimism is starting to improve. The chart below is from the Leuthold Group. Note that, over the last month, the Investors Intelligence survey was still flashing a contrarian signal for the stock market.

Value Remains on Sale

The chart below is from Jeremy Grantham at investment management firm GMO. I’ve seen similar charts from other firms. We at AAII have observed value being cheap as well. The chart compares the valuations of cheap stocks to the valuations of expensive stocks. As you can see at a glance, value remains historically cheap relative to growth.

Financial Issues Causing Stress

The financial issues that cause the largest amount of stress vary by age. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), younger adults fret most about how to pay their monthly bills. For workers age 50 or older, saving enough for retirement is the biggest worry.

Watch Your Language!

Incidents of swearing on conference calls is on the rise. The Financial Times, which published this chart, attributed the new record use of foul language to a “‘polycrisis’ of runaway inflation, pandemics, interest rate increases, supply chain snafus and wars [that] helped lift swearing on earnings calls.”

Evidently, some corporate executives need to wash their mouths out with soap.