Big Red Car here.

The Boss was at the computer last night so I was having a spot of trouble getting my words down in print.

I want to share with you a place on the web that I get gobs of valuable information.  It is really the best site I have ever found for a fair minded discussion of just about everything that I find interesting about the Big Picture.

Advisor Perspectives

The site is advisorperspectives.com and one of their authors is a gentleman named Doug Short.  His subsection of the site can be accessed in the upper left hand corner.  I think he is their rock star author.

I will tell you a bit more about Doug Short in just a second but the Advisor Perspectives site is fabulous.  It has tons of information and the content provided by Doug Short is superb.

Its targeted audience is financial advisors.

Doug Short, PhD

Dr Short is a Duke grad — yeah, I know  WE all love the Carolina Tarheels but this is more academic rather than sports.  We will give him a pass on the Duke stuff.  Though we do love the way the NC State Wolfpack — where Dr Short used to teach — manhandled those rotten Dukies.  Right?

Dr Short was an English Doctor of Philosophy, PhD professor type for decades, but had a lifelong interest in financial data, analyzing financial data and charting financial data.  His charts are off the chart!  Haha — damn funny for a Big Red Car!  [pullquote]His charts are off the chart![/pullquote]

Look at his biography here and you will see that he is an amazing guy.  I note with interest his early adoption of spreadsheets.  He was on the bleeding edge of the development of these tools which today are taken for granted.  Guys like Dr Short helped these tools out of the cradle and taught them to walk.

The Boss, who spends a lot of time in the Carolinas where Dr Short operates from Raleigh and Myrtle Beach, called him up one day to make contact and compliment him on his website and they had a nice chat for about an hour.  In addition to being a genius, he is also apparently a damn nice guy.  That is important to a Big Red Car.

Example

Just one example of his work is this article on the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.

The Big Red Car picked that one because it is of interest but also because it is an easy one to understand.  It also highlights one of the things The Boss has been saying recently — we are not out of the woods yet!

Here is a great chart from that article showing the current state of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment study.

This is a very powerful picture of exactly where we are, where we have been and where we are going.  Shown in conjunction with GDP, it paints a picture that one can relate exactly to one’s own sentiment.  A powerful lesson indeed.

Similarly here is another graph — taken from Dr Short’s article — which shows a similar view of things from The Conference Board’s Consumer Index.

Lastly, we have the NIFB Small Business Optimism Index.

All three graphs tell essentially the same story and when overlaid with the timing of recessions paint a very thorough picture of where consumer and business sentiment is at this critical time in the economy’s struggles.

You should subscribe to Dr Short’s information via email.  Do this here.

So that is where The Boss gets his information. Don’t you just love those charts?  The Big Red Car does.

But, hey, what the Hell do I know really?  I’m just a Big Red Car.

Be good to yourself and kind to others.  Everyone deserves a bit of kindness.