A) Each series below should be tracked and presented in numerical form in an excel spreadsheet. (Place the date in the left hand column and each series in the row.)
B) Each series should be presented graphically overtime and analyzed for its direction and strength. (Once your data is in excel, highlight the series, then at the top hit the insert button, then hit the line graph button and excel will automatically create a graph for you.)
Financial data to track in the project include:
1) Money: Measured as M1 and M2 seasonally adjusted.
2) Short-Term Interest Rates:Measured as Federal Funds interest rate and 3 month T-Bill interest rates.
3) Long-term Interest Rates:Measured as the 30 year AAA corporate Bond Rate, the Baa Corporate bond rate, and a 30 year fixed mortgage rate.
4) Yield Curve:Measured as the difference between the short term 3 month T-Bill rate and the long term 30 year Treasury Bond rate.
5) Stock MarketMeasured as Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), NASDAQ, and the S&P 500. Price, yield, and P/E Ratio of any stock of your choice (found in the Wall Street Journal).
6) Derivative/Commodity:Price of Gold and Oil.
7) Prices (P) and Inflation: Prices measured CPI – consumer price index (CPI for all iitems), and Inflation measured as the change in CPI
8) Output and its
Components:Real GDP (output) and its components (real Consumption (C), real Investment (I), Government Spending (G), and real Net Exports (NX)).
9) UnemploymentCivilian Unemployment rate.
This information can be found at http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/. It may also be
obtained.
Once you have collected all the data, summarize the current state of our financial markets
and make any policy or regulation suggestions.
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