Friday, August 01, 2014 - Jobs, Mainly

Jobs, Mainly

by Sinclair Noe

DOW – 69 = 16,493
SPX – 5 = 1925
NAS – 17 = 4352
10 YR YLD - .05 = 2.50%
OIL - .32 = 97.88
GOLD + 13.70 = 1295.20
SILV - .09 = 20.40

The first Friday of each month brings us what I consider one of the most important economic reports we can cover, the jobs report; and so we provide comprehensive (wonkish) coverage.

The economy added 209,000 net new jobs in July. The unemployment rate moved up to 6.2% from 6.1%. Even though the economy added jobs, more people joined the labor force, and that is why the unemployment rate moved higher. The 209,000 new jobs was below estimates of about 230,000. The report from June was revised from 288,000 to 298,000; the May report was revised from 224,000 to 229,000 for a net 15,000 in upward revisions.

Employment is up 2.57 million year over year. We have regained the jobs lost in the downturn, and total employment is 639,000 above the pre-recession peak. Total employment is up 9.35 million from the lows of the recession, and private employment is up almost 9.9 million from the lows; the difference reflects the job losses in government related jobs.

So far this year an average of 229,000 new jobs a month have been created. That’s a significantly higher pace than in 2010 when a mere 88,000 jobs a month on average were added. Since the start of the year the economy has added 1.6 million jobs.  At the current pace, the economy could add 2.75 million jobs this year, which would be the best year for total and private job growth since 1999.

This was the sixth month in a row with more than 200,000 jobs added, and that hasn’t happened since 1997. It was probably a bigger achievement 17 years ago, because the economy and the labor force was smaller back then, but the employment recovery has been chugging along through a first quarter that was frozen by the polar vortex and rebound in the second quarter. And the private sector has been adding jobs consistently since the first quarter of 2010.

The unemployment rate was up to 6.2%. The jobless rate can rise for both good reasons (more people looking for work) and bad reasons (fewer people having a job). This month, more people were looking for work. The Labor Force Participation Rate increased to 62.9% in July; this is a measure of how many people who are of working age are actually in the labor force and working or looking for work. The idea that the pool of labor is increasing is a positive; the idea is that some people who have been unemployed for a long time are now finding jobs. The trend in employment growth remains more than strong enough for the unemployment rate to keep trending down, even though the rate rose a tenth this month

Part of the decline in the participation rate was due to demographics; many older workers retired, whether they wanted to or not, while many younger workers stayed in school or returned to school. So, it’s helpful to look at people aged 25-54, in their prime working age; among this group, the participation rate declined slightly; this confirms that younger and older workers were jumping back into the labor pool.  Still, the employment to population rate, which measures the country’s population that reported having a job in July was unchanged at 59%, a number that was up only barely from its 58.7% level of a year ago.

There are still more than 3.1 million workers who have been unemployed more than half a year. And there are just over 7.5 million people working part-time for economic reasons. These workers are included in an alternate measure of unemployment known as the U-6, which includes unemployed and underutilized workers; U-6 increased from 12.1% to 12.2%.

Many people think the U-6 is a more accurate measure of the jobs market, but let’s dig a little deeper. There are 9.6 million people unemployed and actively looking for a job. There are more than 2 million people who have stopped looking for a job within the past year. When you start adding all the unemployed workers who want a job, plus involuntary part-time, plus discouraged workers, you come up with about 23 million people that could possibly move into the labor pool. There is still massive slack in the labor market, and it will take a long time to take up the slack. For now, it is a slow, steady slog.

Where is the job growth coming from? Professional and business services added 47,000 jobs. Retail employment gained 27,000 jobs. Manufacturing added 28,000 jobs last month but the sector has recovered only 30% of the jobs lost during the recession. Construction added 22,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality gained 21,000. Education and health services added 17,000. Government added 11,000. State and local government employment is now up 151,000 from the bottom, but still nearly 600,000 below the peak. Federal government jobs have dropped by 22,000 since the start of the year. The loss of government jobs is one of the major factors in the slow jobs recovery. In previous downturns, government did not have layoffs, and sometimes increased hiring. In this downturn government jobs were cut in a wave of austerity measures.

Even though the economy has been adding jobs, it has not been enough to push a recovery in wages. In July, average hourly wages rose a penny to $24.45, a disappointing result after strong gains in June and May. In 23 of the past 24 months, the yearly increase in hourly pay has ranged from 1.9% to 2.2%, or about one-third less than usual during an economic recovery. The 12-month increase in wages as of July was just 2%; and inflation wiped out about three-fourths of that gain. There’s been no change since the start of 2014. While it might seem counterintuitive that wages are flat while jobs are being added, the likely reason is that there are a lot of poor paying jobs plus a few very good paying jobs. The average length of the workweek for private sector workers was unchanged at 34.5 hours.

Stronger than expected US growth figures on Wednesday showed second quarter GDP up 4% on an annualized basis, along with hawkish comments from US Federal Reserve board member Charles Plosser, it prompted fears that the central bank may increase the cost of borrowing sooner than expected. Today’s non-farm payroll numbers were just weak enough to ease concerns about possible tightening from the Fed, yet not so awful as to indicate a downturn. It still points to a job market and an economy that is improving, but there is no real wage pressure and nothing to indicate inflation is a concern.

We had a couple more economic reports today. The Institute for Supply Management said its index of national factory activity rose to 57.1 in July, the highest since April 2011, from 55.3 in June. A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final July reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment came in at 81.8, down from the final June reading of 82.5. The surveyors report that consumers’ attention has been dominated by jobs and income growth.

For the week, the S&P 500 fell 2.7%, its biggest weekly percentage loss since the week ending June 1, 2012, while the Nasdaq fell 2.2%. The Dow ended down 2.8% for the week. The Dow's losses dragged it further into negative territory for the year. For the year-to-date, it is down 0.5%.

Markets have suffered a turbulent few days, hit by a combination of interest rate concerns and growing geopolitical worries. The violence in Gaza also added to the sense of events escalating out of control; a proposed 72 hour cease fire didn’t last one day. An Israeli soldier was captured, and it looks like violence will escalate over the weekend. The week saw Argentina defaulting for the second time in 12 years, while continuing tensions with Russia over the Ukraine led to the imposition of further sanctions which could hit businesses and put the brakes on global growth.

It was a big week for US economic activity, with jobs and GDP statistics and a Fed meeting, but it was European equity markets that took a real tumble. Portugal was a big loser, as Banco Espírito Santo reported the largest-ever loss for a Portuguese company, sending its shares spiraling and prompting probes into possible accounting fraud at the bank.

Portugal’s major stock index dropped 10% for the week. German stocks were hit following stepped up sanctions against Russia, a major supplier of natural gas to Germany; the DAX index slipped 4.5%. Greece, Austria, Spain, UK, and France all saw declines of 3% or more. The major Russian index dropped about 1%.

Europe posted its own jobs report. Eurozone unemployment dropped to 11.5%, which is absolutely horrible, but getting better. Meanwhile, the region continues to flirt with the prospect of deflation, with euro zone wide prices rising a scant 0.4% in July from the prior year. So, there is still plenty the ECB can do to stimulate the economy over there.

Meanwhile, Congress is calling a 5 week recess, an extended summer vacation, which even Europeans think is excessive. They managed to get a few things done before running away. They passed a $16 billion VA bill to help deal with extensive treatment delays and a recent record-keeping scandal. They cobbled together a patch for highway funding, just a temporary patch. This Congress has only managed to pass 142 bills into law, which puts the legislative branch on pace for its least productive session in modern history. And now they’re heading out for a 5 week vacation. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t come back.

Thursday, July 31, 2014 - Ugly Day, Ugly Logic

Ugly Day, Ugly Logic

by Sinclair Noe

DOW – 317 = 16,563
SPX – 39 = 1930
NAS – 93 = 4369
10 YR YLD un = 2.55%
OIL – 2.12 = 98.15
GOLD – 14.00 = 1281.50
SILV - .23 = 20.48

Well, this was just ugly. The worst day for the Dow Industrial Average in about 4 months. Back on April 10^th, the Dow dropped 267 points; that same day, the S&P 500 was down 30 points. Today wiped out the gains from July, with July marking the first negative month for the Dow and the S&P since January.

The S&P is still up about 5% for the year to date, but the Dow started the year at 16,576. All those record highs for 2014 have just been washed away. That’s how it goes; the markets scratch and claw, higher and higher, inch by inch it’s a cinch, until the cinch breaks. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about shorting, and the advantage of shorting is that the moves can be quick and severe. Sure enough. And while this might just be one bad day, long overdue, the Dow dropped below its 50 day moving average, which is one of the major measurements of a trend.

So, the question is why did the stock market nosedive today? One recurring theme I’ve been hearing is that traders are afraid the Fed will pull away the punchbowl. Yesterday’s GDP report showing better than expected 4% growth in the second quarter combined with today’s employment cost index, which rose 0.7% in the second quarter, made people nervous about the prospect of an improving economy and the possibility of wages pushing inflation higher.

Now wait just a minute; that doesn’t sound so bad; the economy is expanding at a 4% pace which is certainly better than a contracting economy which we saw in the first quarter; and workers are being paid a little more – not much just a little - and that’s certainly better than watching the middle class shrink into oblivion. If you look at this explanation for the market decline, it is an example of perverse logic, where the stock market traders are in opposition to economic prosperity and are only happy in the face of hardship; other people’s hardship, not their own.

There might be something to that interpretation. Beginning in 2008, the Fed cranked up a series of programs to stimulate the economy. Of course, the Fed didn’t really stimulate the economy but they did stimulate certain financial sectors, such as housing, and very clearly the stock and bond markets. During that time, the Fed added over $3.5 trillion to their balance sheet, which now holds nearly $4.5 trillion. The basic mechanics were that the US government borrowed money by selling Treasuries, and the Fed bought a large portion of those Treasuries with freshly printed money. Since 2013 the Fed’s balance sheet has grown even faster than government debt, which has leveled off, almost. Overlay a chart of the S&P 500 with a chart of the Fed’s balance sheet; the similarities are more than coincidental. A big chunk of the money the Fed was printing sloshed over into the stock market. When the Fed stops printing all that money, who is left to buy stocks?

The accumulated “surplus” of printed money will only last a couple of months. Sooner or later (probably sooner), the stock market will start to feel the pain of this monetary tightening. Of course the Fed isn’t really exiting the money printing business. They won’t sell off the assets held on their balance sheet; they will let those treasuries and mortgage backed securities mature and expire, maybe even roll over a few. And government debt hasn’t disappeared, so the Fed will continue printing money. We don’t know how the Fed taper and eventual increases in interest rates will turn out; neither does the Fed know. It’s a big experiment; the Fed might throw a curveball or two along the way; the stock market traders might throw a tantrum, knocking down your IRA in the process. The recurring theme today was that the Fed might pull away the punchbowl; the Fed hasn’t actually done that; they said this week they would not do that anytime soon. There has been considerable consideration given to a Fed exiting. Imagine when they actually do it.

The big institutional traders may already be headed for the doors. Last week, investors added $379 million into equity mutual funds, the kind that’s popular with retail investors. At the same time, exchange-traded funds focusing on equities; the kind of securities traded by institutional investors because of their liquidity and lower cost, saw a whopping $7.97 billion in outflows. That’s the biggest outflow seen since February.

Anyway, the Wall Street traders’ logic is flawed; the 4% growth in second quarter GDP really isn’t as good as it seems. The 4% growth implies the economy is on a very slow growth path when averaged in with the -2.1 contraction in the first quarter. Taken together, the economy grew at less than a 1.0% annual rate in the first half of 2014. That is hardly cause for celebration on Main Street or trepidation on Wall Street. Also, the strong growth in the second quarter was in direct response to the weak growth in the first quarter. Inventory growth was very weak in the first quarter, subtracting 1.16% points from the quarter's growth, and so a reversion to the mean, or a return to a more normal pace of inventory accumulation in the second quarter was a strong boost to growth, adding 1.66 percentage points. Final sales grew at just a 2.3% annual rate in the second quarter. Even that rate was likely inflated to some extent by the weakness from the first quarter.

But that wasn’t the only demon plaguing the stock market today. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. And there have been a lot of other things.

The bond market has its own demons. Fitch warns a jump in US high-yield default rates looms. There have been 10 LBO related bond defaults thus far in 2014, compared with nine for all of 2013. While most sectors remain relatively calm, the utilities and chemicals sectors are seeing huge spikes in defaults. Since the Fed pushed rates down near zero people have been chasing yield and that means the high yield market has become crowded, and that means the yield on risky debt has dipped to a little less than 6% on average, compared to a more typical yield of a little less than 9% for junk  debt. If or when the Fed starts targeting higher rates, who will be looking for the junk with the not so high yield? A reversion to the mean would result in big capital losses, and it could turn ugly if people start running for the exits and can’t find a bid.

And then we can’t forget the geopolitical problems of the world. A negative July in stocks was matched by a negative July in Ukraine, and Israel, and Gaza, and Iraq, and Syria, and Libya. Toss in sanctions on Russia, which will also hurt the European Union.  And then late yesterday, Argentina put a cherry on top.

Argentina has defaulted, or as S&P described it, a “selective default”. A quick recap: In 2001 Argentina defaulted on its debt and it forced most of its creditors to take a haircut, that is a lot less money than the face value of the bonds. After the default, Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager of NML Capital, bought a lot of the bonds at a big discount, pennies on the dollar, and then demanded the bonds be paid in full. Argentina refused to pay the vulture hedge funds. So Singer took his case to the courts – not in Argentina, but in the US. The case was heard by a judge who didn’t really understand all the fancy talk about bonds, and so he ruled against Argentina. About a month ago, the US Supreme Court said they would not interfere. So now, Argentina can’t pay off the bondholders who accepted the discount, unless they also pay off the hedge fund vultures who demand full payment; which basically negates the whole idea of the default in the first place. So, the US courts have essentially told the sovereign country of Argentina that it is more important to pay off the hedge funds, than it is to default and reboot the Argentine economy on a fresh start.

While Singer’s firm has yet to collect any money from Argentina, some debt market experts say that the battle may already have shifted the balance of power toward creditors in the enormous debt markets that countries regularly tap to fund their deficits. Countries in crisis may now find it harder to gain relief from creditors after defaulting on their debt.

The big question, however, is whether Argentina will ever pay Singer and his vulture fund fellows what it wants. If the firm fails to collect, that would underscore the limits of its legal strategy. There is no international bankruptcy court for sovereign debt that can help resolve the matter. Argentina may use the next few months to try to devise ways to evade the US courts. In dire economic crises countries need to be able to slash their debt loads. The idea is similar to bankruptcy for individuals, a chance to restructure debts and start fresh because we long ago learned that throwing people in prison for the debts didn’t help anybody. The legal victories of the holdouts may embolden creditors to drive harder bargains after future defaults, which in turn could prolong or postpone debt restructurings and extend the economic misery of over-indebted countries. So, the problem in Argentina is not unique to Argentina, it affects the global economic system, we just don’t know to what extent.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - GDP, Fed, Vultures, and Banksters

GDP, Fed, Vultures, and Banksters

by Sinclair Noe

DOW – 31 = 16,880
SPX + 0.12 = 1970
NAS + 20 = 4462
10 YR YLD + .09 = 2.55%
OIL - .72 = 100.25
GOLD – 4.30 = 1295.50
SILV + .06 = 20.72

Last week we told you that this week would be very busy. Well, here we are; today we had a big report on second quarter GDP and the Fed wrapped up a policy session, and that’s just the beginning. 

This morning, the Commerce Department reported the gross domestic product grew at a 4% pace in the second quarter. Boom. And first quarter GDP was revised from negative 2.9% to negative 2.1%; but any way you look at it, this was a massive turnaround.

The government also published revisions to prior GDP data going back to 1999, which showed the economy performing much stronger in the second half of 2013, growing at a 4% pace, the strongest 6 months since late 2003. This was the first estimate of second quarter GDP, and the first revision will be released August 28.

Inventories added 1.66 percentage points to this GDP report. Stockpiles were rebuilt at a $93.4 billion annualized pace after a $35.2 billion gain in the first three months of the year. That could mean companies will keep tighter control on the number of goods on hand this quarter, which could cut into economic growth. Or it might mean companies are optimistic about sales.

Consumer spending rose at a 2.5% pace last quarter, which also topped expectations, and more than double the 1.2% advance in the first quarter of 2014, in part due to less spending on healthcare. Purchases of durable goods, including autos, furniture and appliances and recreational vehicles, jumped at a 14% annualized rate, the fastest since the third quarter of 2009. Despite the pick-up in consumer spending, Americans saved more in the second quarter. The saving rate increased to 5.3% from 4.9% in the first quarter as incomes rose, which bodes well for future spending.

Corporate spending on structures, equipment and intellectual property such as software increased at a 5.5% annualized rate after rising at a 1.6% pace in the prior three months. In addition to consumer spending and business investment, growth got a boost from the biggest gain in state and local government expenditures in five years. Congress is still debating spending for infrastructure improvements such as roads and bridges, and if they can’t work out differences that could prove a stumbling block later in the year. A widening trade gap subtracted 0.6% from growth. Excluding inventories and trade, so-called final sales to domestic purchasers climbed at a 2.8% rate, the biggest increase since the third quarter of 2011.

Still, the big swing from negative 2.1% contraction to positive 4% growth seems like a very big swing, almost freakish. We know that the first quarter was hit by bad weather and the polar vortex …, still. So, we can smooth out the numbers by looking at the full year growth rate; over the past 12 months the economy expanded at a 2.4% rate, pretty much in line with the past 3 years; in fact, 2.4% growth would be decent in normal times, but the economy is still in recovery mode, and 2.4% is not enough to achieve “liftoff”. The economy is headed in the right direction, it is gathering momentum, but it is still operating below potential. By the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates, the level of output reported for the second quarter is still $770 billion below the nation’s current economic potential, or 4.2% below. That implies that the nation still has plenty of room to grow if a faster expansion ever kicks in.

The economy is far from perfect, we have a long way to go, but today’s report indicates progress, real, honest to goodness progress.

A price index in the GDP report rose at a 2.3% rate in the second quarter, the quickest in three years, after advancing at a 1.4% pace in the prior period. A core price measure that strips out food and energy costs increased at a 2.0% pace, the fastest since the first quarter of 2012. The inflation picture should lend support to the Fed hawks who want to hike interest rates sooner rather than later, but for now the Fed is standing pat.

The Federal Reserve Federal Open Market Committee reaffirmed it was in  no rush to raise interest rates, even as it upgraded its assessment of the economy and expressed a level of comfort that inflation was moving up closer to its target, and the taper is  still on track. The Fed has kept overnight rates near zero since December 2008 and has more than quadrupled its balance sheet to $4.4 trillion through a series of bond purchase programs. The Fed announced, as expected, that it would reduce its monthly bond purchases to $25 billion per month, but it gave no indication that recent signs of stronger economic growth had changed its previously announced plan to hold short-term interest rates near zero well into 2015.

The Fed acknowledged both faster economic growth and a decline in the unemployment rate, but expressed concern about remaining slack in the labor market. The Fed’s statement said: "Labor market conditions improved, with the unemployment rate declining further… However, a range of labor market indicators suggests that there remains significant underutilization of labor resources."

Some Fed officials see evidence that the economy is settling into a pattern of slower growth, and that monetary policy has substantially exhausted its power to improve the situation. They want the Fed to retreat more quickly from its stimulus campaign, fearing higher inflation, or that it will encourage bubbles in financial assets. Fed chairwoman, Janet Yellen, and her allies have taken a more cautious view, arguing that the decline in the unemployment rate appears to overstate the improvement in the labor market, because it counts only people who are looking for work. Yellen expects some people who had been discouraged about their job prospects will return to the labor force as the economy continues to improve, and she has pointed to weak wage growth as evidence that it remains easy to find workers.

More optimism for the economy came in a report from ADP, the payroll processing company; private employers added 218,000 jobs last month, which was down from 281,000 in June. It was the fourth straight month of job gains above 200,000. While ADP’s numbers offered reason to be hopeful, the company’s figures cover only private businesses and often do not track with the government’s jobs report, which will be released Friday.

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s says Argentina has defaulted after it failed to make a $539 million interest payment due on its discount bonds. The downgrade came late this afternoon as representatives for Argentina and New York hedge funds sought to reach a last-minute agreement on Argentina’s debt. Yet after more than five hours of mediated talks, neither side appeared closer to a deal. Standard & Poor’s lowered its rating on the country’s debt to “selective default”, noting that Argentina had a 30-day grace period following the June 30 scheduled interest payment date to make payment.

This story goes back to 2001, when Argentina defaulted on tens of billions of dollars of sovereign bonds. It later exchanged those bonds for discounted ones with most of its bondholders, but a small group of traders, mainly hedge funds, led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management refused to take the new bonds, even though they had purchased the discounted bonds after the default, at pennies on the dollar, they demanded full payment, and they have not backed down, and they took it to court in the US.

In 2012 a US federal judge ruled that Argentina could not make payments to bondholders who had agreed to discounted bonds, without paying the holdouts. Argentina appealed and took its case to the United States Supreme Court which rejected the appeal last month. Argentina had until the end of the day to pay the holdouts or risk defaulting for a second time in 13 years.

A federal judge has ordered Bank of America’s Countrywide unit to pay $1.27 billion in penalties for defective mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008. US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan issued the civil penalty against BofA in the first mortgage-fraud case brought by the federal government to go to trial. A jury in Manhattan found Countrywide liable. The judge determined that Fannie and Freddie had paid Countrywide nearly $3 billion for HSSL loans, but determined that 57% of the loans were of acceptable quality. HSSL refers to a Countrywide loan program called the High Speed Swim Lane, which basically fast-tracked almost any loan; it was also known as a “Hustle” loan.

In today’s decision, Judge Rakoff wrote: “While the HSSL process lasted only nine months, it was from start to finish the vehicle for a brazen fraud by the defendants, driven by hunger for profits and oblivious to the harms thereby visited, not just on the immediate victims but also on the financial system as a whole.”

Separately, Bank of America is reportedly nearing a settlement with the Justice Department to resolve an investigation into its sale of mortgage backed bonds centered on faulty loans the company inherited from Countrywide and Merrill Lynch, which it purchased in 2008. The discussions include how much money will be paid in cash and how much in consumer relief. Potential terms have ranged from $13 billion to $17 billion. The DOJ has been trying to work out a settlement for some time, and was reportedly dissatisfied with a $13 billion deal that included $5 billion in consumer relief. The consumer relief portion of these settlements has typically been an easy out for the banks. The amount of any settlement would come on top of the $9.5 billion the bank agreed to pay in March to resolve Federal Housing Finance Agency claims.

Monday, July 28, 2014 - You Might Not Like the Solution

You Might Not Like the Solution
by Sinclair Noe

DOW + 22 = 16,982
SPX + 0.57 = 1978
NAS – 4 = 4444
10 YR YLD + .02 = 2.47%
OIL - .52 = 101.57
GOLD – 4.80 = 1304.50
SILV - .18 = 20.67

This will be a busy week for economic reports. Today’s reports included the National Association of Realtors’ index of pending home sales for June; it dropped 1.1%. This index looks at contracts signed, and usually about 80% of signed contracts result in a sale within 2 months. The pending home sales index is up 9% from February, but it is down 7.3% compared to June a year ago. The blame can be placed at the usual suspects: tough credit requirements, rising home prices, and weak wage growth.

In a separate report the Markit preliminary services Purchasing Managers Index for July was 61, unchanged for June; a reading above 50 indicates expansion. The services sector continued to add employees, though at a slower pace. The employment index fell from 56.1, the fastest rate on record, to 52.8 in July.

Wednesday morning brings the first estimate of second quarter gross domestic product. It is widely anticipated the economy grew at about a 3% pace in the second quarter, following a 2.9% contraction in the first quarter, largely blamed on bad winter weather combined with the expiration of long term unemployment benefits and working through excess inventory accumulation. So, the first quarter and second quarter will kind of cancel each other out and result in a flat first half. If the economy can maintain 3% growth for the next couple of quarters, it will result in annualized growth a little below 2%. Wednesday’s GDP report will include revisions to output for the past 3 years.

A few hours after the GDP report, the Federal Reserve FOMC will wrap up a 2 day meeting on monetary policy, and issue a statement. However, the Fed will not update its economic forecast, nor will they hold a press conference until the September 17^th FOMC meeting; so don’t expect any major changes to Fed policy this week. Still, Fed watchers will look for nuances to the Fed statement for any hint of policy changes, specifically when the Fed will start to raise interest rates.

Friday brings the non-farm payroll report for July. It is expected the economy added about 235,000 net new jobs in July; anything close is in the ballpark; anything under 200,000 or over 300,000 would shock the markets. The unemployment rate is expected to drop to 6%, but the unemployment rate has quite a few variables to consider, including the participation rate – the percentage of the population still looking for work or working. The participation rate has dropped from 65.8% in 2007 to 62.8% last month. This means that a lot of people have dropped out of the labor market. If some of those people re-enter the labor market and start looking for jobs, the unemployment rate could move higher, even if the economy adds a bunch of new jobs.

We kick off the week with a Merger Monday. Zillow will buy Trulia for $3.5 billion. Zillow and Trulia are No. 1 and 2 in the online real estate market, followed by No. 3 Move Inc. Zillow reported nearly 83 million monthly unique visitors in June. Trulia reported 54 million. The combination would create something like a monopoly in the online home hunting market.

Dollar Tree has agreed to buy Family Dollar Stores for $8.5 billion. The deal was pushed forward by investor Carl Icahn, who had built up a 9.5% stake in Family Dollar, and with the bump up in price from the merger, Icahn pockets a cool $150 million increase this weekend. The new Dollar Tree, or maybe Dollar Family Tree, would keep operating separate chains, but would have about 13,000 locations across the US and Canada, with 145,000 employees and about  $18 billion in revenue.

Tesla and Panasonic have reached a deal for Panasonic to invest in Tesla’s gigafactory. The initial Panasonic investment will be about $200 to $300 million, but could grow to $5 billion. The gigafactory would make battery packs for cars. Panasonic is the main supplier of battery cells for Tesla. Tesla has said it is evaluating sites in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas to place its massive battery factory. The electric car maker would break ground on the gigafactory later this year. Tesla is scheduled to report earnings on Thursday.

Lloyds Banking Group has agreed to pay $370 million to US and British regulators to resolve investigations into manipulating interest rates or Libor rate rigging. There were 2 main issues with Lloyds: rigging Libor, for which seven other institutions have already been punished; and for the first time, manipulating another rate, known as the repo rate. This repo rate was used to calculate the scale of the fees paid to the Bank of England for its special liquidity scheme (SLS), which was created in April 2008 to cheapen the prices at which money could be obtained by banks as the credit crisis unfolded; in other words, Lloyds manipulated their own bailout. The British lender is the latest big bank to admit criminal wrongdoing, and they entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. Under that agreement, Lloyds will avoid criminal charges if it stays out of trouble for the next two years.

Plenty of banks have entered into deferred prosecution agreements but I have never heard of one that violated a deferred prosecution agreement; and it isn’t because the banksters keep their nose clean; it’s because the regulators never apply the DPA.

Taking a look at geopolitical hotspots. Israel had agreed to a 12 hour ceasefire, but Hamas continued to fire rockets into Israel, so the ceasefire is off. Palestinian fighters launched a cross-border raid. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is now warning of a protracted war in Gaza.

The Ukrainian government said today its troops had taken more territory from the rebels and were moving towards the site of the Malaysian airlines crash which international investigators said they could not reach because of the fighting. Meanwhile, US and European leaders agreed to impose wider sanctions on Russia's financial, defense and energy sectors.

Separately, an international arbitration court at The Hague ruled that Russia must pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos, the former oil giant. Finding that Russian authorities had subjected Yukos to politically-motivated attacks, the panel made an award to a group of former Yukos shareholders that equates to more than half the entire fund Moscow has set aside to cover budget holes. The ruling hit back at decisions made under President Vladimir Putin's rule during his first term as president to nationalize Yukos and jail Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who had criticized him. The hardline approach was seen by Kremlin critics at the time as a stark message to oligarchs to stay out of politics. Khodorkovsky, who used to be Russia's richest man, was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and convicted of theft and tax evasion in 2005. Yukos, once worth $40 billion, was broken up and nationalized, with most assets handed to Rosneft, an energy company run by an ally of Putin.

And don’t forget Libya. Two rival brigades of former rebels fighting for control of Tripoli International Airport have been throwing bombs at each other’s positions; then somebody bombed a huge nearby fuel depot, and that is now burning out of control. The conflict has forced Tripoli International Airport to shut down. Airliners were reduced to smoldering hulks on the tarmac and the aviation control center was knocked out. Libya's government has asked for international help to try to contain the disaster at the fuel depot on the airport road, close to other tanks holding gas and diesel. With Libyan security deteriorating, the United States evacuated its embassy in Tripoli on Saturday; British, Italian, Philippine, and Australian embassies have followed suit.

The typical American household has been losing ground. According to a new study by the Russell Sage Foundation the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36% decline. Even as the average American household’s wealth declined, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially. The average wealth of the American household in the 95th percentile was $1,192,639 in 2003, and $1,364,834 ten years later, an increase of 14%.

The authors of the study said the reason for the disparity was that affluent households were able to ride the success of the surging stock market after the 2008 crash, while middle class families were severely impacted by the decreasing value of their homes. Wealth declined for everyone in the aftermath of the Great Recession, but better-off families were able to rebound. Households at the bottom of the wealth distribution, on the other hand, lost the largest share of their wealth.

So, as we look at the economic news this week, the GDP estimate and the jobs report, it’s a little hard to imagine sustainable economic growth without a strong middle class. The lesson of the past 10 years, and we might even say the past 30 years, is that pumping up the upper echelons of the economy and hoping it trickles down to the rest, doesn’t work. The middle class gets clobbered, small businesses are being knocked out of the competition; in the early 1980s small business startups accounted for 50% of all business growth, but that dropped to 35% by 2010, and more small businesses are closing than are being created; and yes, that equates to fewer jobs being created by small businesses.

Back in 1929, the top 10% earned nearly 50% of the income. Today, income inequality is even wider. In 2012, the top 10% surpassed 50% of the total US income for the first time, and the problem has only grown in the past 2 years. Wealth disparity alarms often coincide with major financial peaks, such as 1929, 1999, 2007, and today; that’s because wealth disparity and income inequality are not sustainable, and there are only 2 solutions: the first is to grow the middle class, encourage small business, lift people out of long term unemployment; the second solution, is that the wealth distribution problem tends to be solved by falling markets.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - Use Your Library Card at a Copy Shop for a Horseback Ride to the Moon

Use Your Library Card at a Copy Shop for a Horseback Ride to the Moon
by Sinclair Noe

DOW + 49 = 16,867
SPX + 9 = 1959
NAS + 29 = 4379
10 YR YLD - .02 = 2.56%
OIL + .74 = 106.77
GOLD - .60 = 1319.40
SILV + .09 = 21.12

One of the jobs of the Commerce Department is to calculate the gross domestic product of the country; clearly it is a difficult task to figure out the value of all the goods and services produced, and so they tend to revise the numbers as they gather information. In April the Commerce Department figured the economy grew, just barely, 0.1% in the first quarter; last month they revised their GDP numbers to negative1.0%; today they revised GDP even lower. The economy shrank by 2.9%.

To understand the big move, you first have to realize that the GDP number is supposed to measure everything; construction and demolition, marriages and divorces, broccoli sales and cigarette sales, yoga classes and cancer treatments. One of the big reasons for the negative number is that the cost of healthcare dropped significantly.

The US spent $6.4 billion less on health care in the first quarter than in the last quarter of 2013. Government statisticians initially forecast a 9.9% increase in health-care spending, and what we got was a 1.4% decline. Considering all the millions of previously uninsured people who are gaining access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, how can they be shrinking so dramatically?

Health-care costs overall have been increasing more slowly in recent years compared with the pace before the 2007-09 recession. Slow growth in the price of health-care services combined with a decline in the amount of health care people consumed in the first quarter. Still, health-care spending is expected to accelerate again in coming quarters as the millions of people who gained health insurance coverage during the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period begin to use their new coverage. Most people who got coverage at the start of the year, are just now figuring out how to use the coverage. So, the idea that people are spending less on health care may hurt the GDP number but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. This also means that the economists don’t really understand how Obamacare is affecting the economic data; and that means they don’t really know how long it will distort data. This is new territory.  

A couple of other areas were also involved in shrinking the economy. Companies continue to hoard cash and shun investing in new equipment or new employees; and that will continue until demand picks up; we’ve been told demand will pick up, any day now…, it’ll pick up…., that’s what we’ve heard for a few years.

Another rough spot for GDP was in trade. The trade deficit widened in the first quarter, which would typically indicate growth, but in the first quarter both imports and exports dragged down growth. And then trade was disrupted by the weather, the excuse that keeps giving and giving.  And now that the winter has turned to spring and spring to summer, the economy will bounce back like a kangaroo on a trampoline. Maybe. Consider that when the economy shrank in the first quarter of 2009, the country lost 2.3 million jobs and the markets were in a free fall. Fast forward to first quarter 2014 and the markets are around record highs while the country added about 600,000 new jobs; hardly the stuff of gloom and doom.

Today’s GDP revision might give the Federal Reserve cause for pause, or more likely it will reinforce their dovish inclinations for monetary policy. On the fiscal side, if policymakers in Washington are concerned enough to give the economy a boost, they can consider straightforward measures that would promote growth and create jobs: invest in infrastructure, restore extended unemployment benefits, hire public-sector workers like teachers and first responders, and basically abandon austerity measures in general.

You may remember the gloom and doom days of 1973, when OPEC imposed an oil embargo; prices jumped, lines formed at gas stations to buy rationed gas. Lawmakers responded by limiting the export of oil from the US; we could still export gasoline and diesel but not oil. It didn’t make much common sense but that was the response to the embargo. Things have changed.

Now, oil drillers are tapping shale formations and so much oil is flooding out of the ground that prices for ultralight oil have dropped as much as $10 below the price of traditional crude oil. Which sounds good if you are a consumer, because you might think it would result in lower prices at the pump. But as you know, the price at the pump has been going up because of the crazies in Iraq, and Libya, and Ukraine. Rather than let the oil build up and let prices drop, the plan is to export that oil under a process known as a private ruling which would relax the export restrictions.

The private rulings by the Commerce Department define some ultralight oil as fuel after it has been minimally processed, making the oil eligible for sale outside the US. Export could start in August, and could increase to more than 700,000 barrels a day by next year. The Commerce Department has given permission to two companies to ship ultralight oil: Pioneer Natural Resources and Enterprise Products Partners.

So if you were hoping that all that domestic oil drilling would lead to lower prices for America, yea, that’s not going to happen.

Have you ever been on the floor of one of the commodity exchanges, or maybe seen pictures of the commodities traders? Thirty years ago, the scene was a violent confrontation of traders battling it out in the pits. Nowadays, the trading is much more subdued. Traders walk around with a portable computer that calculates the price in real time. That formula that is on every commodity trader’s computer is a continuous time option pricing model known as the Black-Scholes-Merton formula. Robert Merton and Myron Scholes won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics for their formula; Fisher Black passed away in 1995.

Robert Merton went on to create computerized arbitrage trading formulas and he advised hedge funds for a while, including the Arbitrage Management Company and Long Term Capital Management. He then settled down to work as a professor at MIT, where his current academic include financial innovation, controlling macro financial risk, and managing sovereign risk.

Bob Merton says your 401K is dangerous. In an article published in the Harvard Business Review, Merton writes: "The only way to avoid a catastrophe is for plan participants, professionals, and regulators to shift the mind-set and metrics from asset value to income."

Instead of telling you how much you’ve accumulated in your 401K, the plan administrators should be telling you the amount of sustainable income an employee can expect to receive in retirement. The “risk is retirement income uncertainty, not portfolio value.” That's not to say that 401k money shouldn't be invested in stocks. In fact, Merton says, 401k investment managers should invest participants' savings in a mixture of "risky assets," including equities, and "risk-free assets," such as long-term US Treasurys and deferred annuities. Merton says the solution  for employees who want to lock in retirement income, “the obvious decision is to buy the annuity.”

By disclosing annual income, Merton says, employers would help employees quickly and easily calculate how much of their annual salary they can expect to replace in retirement, together with Social Security. As a result, employees would be better able to take action to ensure they are on track to retire as planned.

The Supremes are in session and handing down decisions on a daily basis. Let’s start with American Broadcasting Company v Aereo; the Supremes delivered a major victory to the nation’s television networks, ruling that an upstart Internet company was violating copyright laws by transmitting their programs without paying for them. It was a 6-3 vote; in the majority, Justice Breyer said Aereo’s use of modern technology to stream broadcast television was not much different than cable systems that must pay the networks for its content. Meanwhile, in the minority, Justice Scalia said that Aereo is a copy shop that gives its customers a library card. I’m not sure how you might use a library card at a copy shop, but anyway, Kinko’s is out of business and so is Aero.

Today the Supremes also ruled on a couple of fourth amendment cases. The Fourth reads, in part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause…” and apparently your smartphone falls under the category of “papers and effects”.

 Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie featured similar facts. Defendants were detained validly, one for driving with expired tags and the other for a hand-to-hand drug sale. Police searched them, as they had every right to do, and seized their phones. Without getting a warrant, they looked at the contents of each phone and found evidence that led, eventually, to much more serious charges: gang-related attempted murder in the first case and drug distribution and weapons violations in the other.

California state courts refused to overturn Riley’s conviction when he appealed the attempted murder charge, but the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Wurie’s conviction and ordered a new trial on the grounds that the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Police can search a suspect’s pockets, or briefcase, or car when making a valid arrest because there may be weapons nearby or evidence of crime that could be lost. In addition, officers can search when there are “exigent circumstances,” meaning when there is no time to lose, in order, say, to stop a crime in progress, prevent suspects from destroying evidence, or rescue a kidnap victim. Prosecutors in both cases argued that searching a cell phone is really just the same thing as the valid search of personal items. Chief Justice Roberts didn’t buy it, replying, “That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.”

Roberts wrote the opinion for the unanimous decision and concluded: “We cannot deny that our decision today will have an impact on the ability of law enforcement to combat crime… Privacy comes at a cost.”

Thursday, May 29, 2014 - First Quarter GDP and Extreme Weather

First Quarter GDP and Extreme Weather

by Sinclair Noe

DOW + 65 = 16,698
SPX + 10 = 1920
NAS + 22 = 4247
10 YR YLD + .01 = 2.44%
OIL + .79 = 103.51
GOLD – 2.70 = 1256.90
SILV + .02 = 19.14

The economy was worse than expected in the first quarter. The first estimate of first quarter gross domestic product showed 0.1% growth. Today, we got the second estimate and it showed 1.0% contraction. We figured the second estimate would show contraction but most estimates were calling for just 0.1% to 0.6% contraction. The newly revised estimate incorporates additional economic data released in recent weeks. Higher-than-expected imports and slower-than-expected inventory growth dragged the economy into negative territory.

US based corporations posted slightly lower, after tax, seasonally adjusted, first quarter profits of $1.88 trillion for the quarter, down from $1.905 trillion in the fourth quarter; but those numbers were not adjusted for inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments; we know corporations are still holding bloated inventories. A big buildup in private inventories boosted economic growth in the third quarter of 2013, but left a hangover that weighed on growth in the first quarter of 2014. Inventories subtracted 1.62 percentage points from GDP growth, compared with an initial estimate of 0.57 percentage point subtracted from growth.

Business investment declined at a 1.6% pace, revised from an initially estimated decline at a 2.1% pace. Spending on structures fell at a 7.5% pace and spending on equipment fell at a 3.1% rate. Investments in intellectual property, like research and development, rose at a 5.1% pace.

Consumer spending grew at a 3.1% pace in the first quarter, revised up from an initial estimate of growth at a 3% pace. Spending on services, like health care and household heating, grew at a 4.3% pace while spending on physical goods rose at a more modest 0.7% pace.

The housing market was a drag in the first quarter and the revisions didn’t create much change; residential fixed investment contracted at a 5% pace, a little better than the original estimate of a 5.7% decline, and that subtracted 0.16% from GDP.

Exports fell at a 6% pace in the first three months of the year, not as bad as the initial estimate of 7.6%, but imports, which are subtracted from the GDP calculation, rose at a 0.7% pace, compared with the initial estimate that they declined at a 1.4% pace. Net exports subtracted 0.95 percentage point from GDP growth.

Total government spending subtracted 0.15 percentage point from GDP for the quarter, compared with an initial estimate of 0.09 percentage point subtracted from growth. Federal spending added to GDP, state and local government spending subtracted slightly from GDP.

So, it was a nasty GDP revision but don’t worry, be happy because it was weather related and the winter storms and polar vortexes have passed; gray skies have cleared up, put on a happy face. One headline today tries to tell us: “Why the GDP Drop Is Good for the US Economic Outlook”; the thinking is that there is pent-up demand; consumers and businesses will brush off their cabin fever and rush out to buy and sell. Another headline tries to maintain perspective by reminding us that: “The US Economy Had a Hiccup, Not a Heart Attack”; which is almost a valid point; this wasn’t a heart attack, but it wasn’t a hiccup either. That article says, “This isn’t a recession or even the beginning of a recession though.” True, but this is how recessions start, with economic contraction, but this isn’t a recession.

The economy changes slowly, even though economic numbers jump up and down, and the numbers can be tricky. For example, in October 2008, the numbers on the economy showed GDP had dropped 0.3%, not nearly as bad as today’s number. Back in 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed and the politicians said we faced a global financial meltdown.

Back in May 2007, the markets looked a lot like they do today, very low volatility, troubling signs for housing stocks, and a stock sector rotation that suggested the bull market was long in the tooth. That bull market ran for 5 more months. Whether investors knew it or not, they were incurring a large risk for only a few percent reward.

The numbers don’t always reflect the scene on the street. Maybe they do, but more than likely, this is not the start of a new recession. This is how recessions start and the strange part is how most economists are just glossing over this as if it were nothing but a hiccup, when it actually represents billions of dollars; one percent of a $17 trillion dollar economy; some hiccup.

The blame is squarely placed on the weather without acknowledging that the weather is undergoing massive change, not just the polar vortex of winter, but let’s look at the wildfires of spring, and the drought of summer. The “weather effect” is not likely a one and done. The United States is currently engulfed in one of the worst droughts in recent memory. More than 30% of the country experienced at least moderate drought as of last week's data. In seven states drought conditions were so severe that each had more than half of its land area in severe drought. Severe drought is characterized by crop loss, frequent water shortages, and mandatory water use restrictions.

While large portions of the seven states suffer from severe drought, in some parts of these states drought conditions are even worse. In six of the seven states with the highest levels of drought, more than 30% of each state was in extreme drought as of last week, a more severe level of drought characterized by major crop and pasture losses, as well as widespread water shortages. Additionally, in California and Oklahoma, 25% and 30% of the states, respectively, suffered from exceptional drought, the highest severity classification. Under exceptional drought, crop and pasture loss is widespread, and shortages of well and reservoir water can lead to water emergencies.

Drought has had a major impact on important crops such as winter wheat. Just 29% of the entire US wheat crop is rated good to excellent; very poor to poor ratings are 78% in Oklahoma, 67% in Texas and 59% in Kansas. And even though much of Texas received rain in the past week, it may be a case of too little, too late. With the crop now heading out, there's not much hope for any recovery as we move deeper into the season. That likely means higher prices for your daily bread. Pasture land across the West is in generally poor shape; that likely means higher beef prices, which you’ve probably already noticed.

In the Southwest, concerns are less-focused on agriculture and more on reservoir levels. In Arizona, reservoir levels were just two-thirds of their usual average. In New Mexico, reservoir stores were only slightly more than half of their normal levels. And Nevada is the worst of all, with reservoir levels about one-third of normal.

The situation in California may well be the most problematic of any state. The entire state is suffering from severe drought, and 75% of all land area was under extreme drought. Restrictions on agricultural water use has forced many California farmers to leave fields fallow. At the current usage rate, California has less than two years of water remaining. And we know California is responsible for about half the nation’s fruit and vegetable supply.

This past February, US food prices jumped 0.4% — the largest one-month increase since September 2011. Then they jumped another 0.4% in March. Then another 0.4% in April. Fruit and vegetable prices rose even faster, at a 0.7% clip in April. The US Department of Agriculture says the California drought doesn’t seem to have affected vegetable prices so far this year and the agency isn’t predicting a catastrophic spike in food prices just yet. The USDA projects that food price inflation will be between 2.5% and 3.5% in 2014. That's higher than the rise last year, but it's in line with the long-term average of 2.8%.

There are a couple of reasons why we might not get hit in the wallet this year: farmers are shifting water use from some crops to others, cutting back on some crops, like corn and alfalfa that might be available from other places. This strategy is tricky; for example, California dairy farms depend on alfalfa for feed; if they have to import feed, it could increase dairy prices in the short term. Also, farmers are pumping groundwater. The problem is the aquifers are being depleted, even sinking in some cases, and losing their original capacity. In the short term, we adapt; but if the drought continues, next year could be a bear.

Commodity markets already have weathered record cold in the US that sent natural-gas futures to five-year highs and severe drought in Brazil that has nearly doubled coffee prices. Now meteorologists are predicting even more abnormal weather, thanks to the return of El Nino, a rapid and prolonged warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, which disrupts normal weather patterns and would exacerbate the extreme climatic events already affecting many markets this year. Meteorological agencies say there is a 60% to 70% chance of El Nino occurring by the end of 2014, and a more than 50% chance it will arrive earlier, by this summer.

It's a significant event in commodities markets because El Nino affects weather patterns virtually everywhere. Past occurrences brought dry weather to West Africa, damaging the region's cocoa crop, and wet weather to Brazil, delaying the coffee and sugar harvests. India typically sees less rain in its monsoon during an El Nino year, which can mean smaller grain and cotton crops. In the US, El Niño could bring much needed rain to the southwest and California. If it comes.

But El Nino is not necessarily good news for commodity prices on a global scale; it tends to help soybean crops but harm corn, wheat and rice crops. And also remember that El Nino refers to an extreme weather event. When El Nino hit in 1997 it claimed an estimated 2,100 lives and caused $33 billion damage to properties.

No matter which way you look, the forecast calls for extreme weather, and that means the first quarter GDP wasn’t just a hiccup.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - Reflecting the Economy

Reflecting the Economy
by Sinclair Noe

DOW – 42 = 16,633
SPX – 2 = 1909
NAS – 11 = 4225
10 YR YLD - .08 = 2.43%
OIL – 1.03 = 103.08
GOLD = 4.70 = 1259.60
SILV - .01 = 19.13

The major stock market indices were lower, but it wasn’t a big move, and we’ve been 4 up days, so today’s pullback was nothing but a pause. What was interesting today was the move in the bond market. The yield on the 10 year treasury dropped all the way to 2.43%; that’s the lowest rate in almost a year. The 10 year treasury has dropped 22 basis points this month, meaning treasuries are on track for the best month since January. Now, remember that the Federal Reserve is supposed to be tapering, cutting back on large scale purchases of treasury bonds.  

What’s fueling the move? It’s hard to pinpoint one thing. Europe is facing some sort of monetary stimulus package from the ECB next week; meanwhile, a report showed German unemployment rose and that pushed yields on the 10 year bund to 1.28%; that trade then spilled over to the US markets, toss in end of month window dressing and there was likely a short squeeze. There are some big short positions on treasuries right now; more shorts than longs.

At the end of the day, the bond market is supposed to reflect the economy; not an exact image but rather a mirror image. And the US economy is probably not as strong as expected. Tomorrow, we’ll get a revised look at first quarter GDP. The initial estimate on GDP showed just 0.1% growth; a pathetic rate blamed on bad weather; the revision is expected to show the economy contracted by 0.6%, maybe worse. Since the recession ended in June 2009, US GDP growth has dipped into the red only once: the first quarter of 2011, when economic output contracted at a 1.3% rate. It appears likely to happen again. The economy was repeatedly disrupted by cold and snowy weather in the first quarter and much of the activity that did not take place then is occurring now during the warmer spring months. Wall Street expects second-quarter growth to snap back with a 3.8% gain.

But where will the springtime burst of growth come from? Exports? Not to Europe and not to emerging markets. The initial GDP report said net exports subtracted 0.83 percentage point from the GDP growth rate in the first quarter. It may be a bigger drag on growth in Thursday’s update. Construction? A bit, yes, but we continue to see the housing market looking soft. Construction lending is seeing a slow, steady recovery, but it remains 66% below its boom-era peak of $631 billion in outstanding loans in early 2008. Companies restocking their shelves? Not likely. Inventories subtracted 0.57 percentage point from GDP growth, according to the first estimate, and that could grow with this week’s revision; inventories remain high and consumer spending sluggish. Corporate profits? Yes sir that is an area of strength but it’s also a two-edged sword.

The Commerce Department is starting to release a new report on corporate profits. Pretax profits adjusted for depreciation and the value of inventories climbed 1.9% in the fourth quarter to a record $2.13 trillion on a annualized basis. Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP stood at 10.2% in the fourth quarter, just a touch below a record high. Corporate profits are now higher than they’ve ever been before.

Here’s the problem; whenever profit margins reach a high, they tend to peak and then rollover, with the stock market and the economy dragging behind in like manner. It’s tough to keep pumping out record profits, in part because profit margins often depend on cost cutting, not just revenue; there are limits to how much fat a company can trim and there are limits to how much a company can increase sales while simultaneously cutting back on R&D and capital expenditures. Right now, stocks are priced to reflect very high corporate profits. Any disappointment would shake that pricing structure and translate into big stock market losses.

Like any individual indicator, this is not an absolute. Corporate profit margins can remain at elevated levels anywhere from a single quarter to multiple years and don’t typically present an imminent warning threat to the stock market or economy until forming a major peak and sudden decline. Profit margins peak on average before the stock market by more than a year and before recessions by more than two years. It doesn’t work out this way all the time; in the early 70’s profits peaked with the market, and in the early 80’s profits peaked after the stock market, and it is possible that the lag time stretches out so far as to make the indicator more or less worthless.

The point is that there are other factors that must be considered. Think of profits as one measurement of the business cycle. So, despite the Fed taper, there is increasing likelihood that interest rates will remain low and possibly decline a bit; if rates decline, stocks are likely to move up with bonds, as we’ve seen can happen; and if falling long-term yields flatten the yield curve, that would increase the risk of a market crash. In a low-yield, low inflation environment, there is a good opportunity to grow profits and so those crashes tend to be preceded by periods of very strong returns. So the current bull market is likely to remain in place until inflation picks up or low-flation/deflation drags down profits.

Falling yields tend to be somewhat more bullish than bearish, but it’s a poor indicator for how the stock market will react. Falling yields are good especially when we are in a bull market, but they can be dangerous if they should drive down the yield curve spread to an unusually low level and then there is the lag effect I mentioned earlier. When the long end of the yield curve comes down that is good for stocks for a while; it can even result in parabolic increases in the short term, but it also indicates bad news for the broader economy, and eventually the bill comes due.

Yesterday we talked about the proposed new EPA regulations on coal fired power plants. Today we’ll talk about the backlash to those proposals; which, by the way, have not been officially proposed yet. It’s anticipated that the new EPA guidelines will try to reduce the percentage of US electricity generated by coal to 14% by 2030 from about 37% right now. Coal is the single biggest source of electricity generation in the US and has been for more than 60 years. The amount of electricity generated by natural gas would rise to 46% by 2030 from about 30% now under the EPA plan. That would make it the biggest generator of the nation’s electricity.

Meanwhile, opponents of the plan say it will increase the cost of electricity and cost jobs. The US Chamber of Commerce released a study showing it would cost the economy $50 billion a year and destroy a quarter million jobs. Sometimes they just pull numbers out of the air; these reports tend to overlook the externalities associated with a dirty fuel like coal, and also overlook the positive impact of cleaner fuels. Anyway, the mudslinging has started.

And a follow-up on the Detroit bankruptcy story. A task force has issued the most detailed study yet of blight in Detroit and recommended that the city spend at least $850 million to quickly tear down about 40,000 dilapidated buildings, demolish or restore tens of thousands more, and clear thousands of trash-packed lots. It also said that the hulking remains of factories that dot Detroit, crumbling reminders of the city’s manufacturing prowess, must be salvaged or demolished, which could cost as much as $1 billion more.

If carried out, the recommendations by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force would drastically alter the face of the nation’s largest bankrupt city. They would also cost significantly more than the approximately $450 million that the city already plans to spend on blight, raising questions about the feasibility of the vast cleanup effort, which is part of its larger campaign to emerge from bankruptcy by fall and begin remaking itself.

The blight study, which is perhaps the most elaborate survey of decay conducted in any large America city, found that 30% of buildings, or 78,506 of them, scattered across the city’s 139 square miles, are dilapidated or heading that way. It found that 114,000 parcels — about 30% of the city’s total — are vacant. And it found that more than 90% of publicly held parcels are blighted. The report also made several recommendations for preventing blight in the future, including changes to property tax and foreclosure laws, and heavy fines for scrap metal theft.

The basic plan is to clean up the city, but nobody really knows how to go about the task. Do you clean up by tearing down or do you clean up by building or rebuilding? For years, some have contemplated consolidating some of the city’s neighborhoods to allow the city to provide services to a smaller area, more suited to its shrunken population; Detroit has gone from 1.8 million to about 800,000. And if they don’t get this right this time, it will likely revert to farmland. 

Friday, May 23, 2014 - Always Double Check Your Spreadsheets

Always Double Check Your Spreadsheets
by Sinclair Noe

DOW + 63 = 16,606
SPX + 8 = 1900
NAS + 31 = 4185
10 YR YLD - .02 = 2.54%
OIL + .67 = 104.41
GOLD - .80 = 1293.90
SILV - .01 = 19.58

The S&P 500 Index closed at a record high of 1900.53. It was a record high close but not a record high considering intraday pricing. The S&P hit an intraday high of 1902 on May 13, however it closed on that day at 1897. Today, the intraday high was 1901, but I’ve always considered the close to be a more significant number than the intraday high. Since the start of the year we’ve been on a roller coaster ride in the markets, but as of today the Dow is up 0.2% year to date, the Nasdaq is up 0.2% for the year, and the S&P is up 2.8% since the start of the year.

If you are a regular, you might wonder why we aren’t celebrating a record high. The first answer is that 1900 is just a number with no special significance; the second answer is that we only celebrate when the Dow Industrial Average hits a record high, and the last record high close on the Dow was May 13 at 16,715. We don’t celebrate S&P records, and like so many things, the reasoning is entrenched in archaic traditional dogma.

An example would be Memorial Day, which started after the Civil War as a way to commemorate the soldiers who died while in military service. The holiday was originally known as Decoration Day, a day to place flowers or other such decoration on the graves of the fallen soldiers. It seems like some sort of twisted ritual when today we have such little respect for our soldiers that we can’t even provide timely health care in a VA hospital. Maybe this Memorial Day we can all contact our elected representative.

You can send an email by going to contactingthecongress.org, or the main phone number for Congress is 202-225-3121. I hope you could contact at least one of your elected officials and tell them to take immediate action to straighten out the problems at the VA before we lose another soldier. I really don’t care if you are republican or democrat or something else; this is not a red or blue issue, it’s a red, white, and blue issue.

In economic news, the Commerce Department reports sales of new single family homes rose 6.4% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 433,000 units in April. The rise ended two straight months of declines. The inventory of new houses on the market increased 0.5% to 192,000 units, the highest level since November 2010. Nevertheless, the stock of new houses on the market remains more than 50% below its pre-recession level.  At April's sales pace it would take 5.3 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 5.6 months in March. With inventories rising, the median price of a new home fell 1.3% to $275,800 from April last year.

According to Freddie Mac, rates on fixed 30-year mortgages fell to an average of 4.14% this week, a near seven-month low. And mortgage rates almost certainly play a very big role in the housing market and according to a new report from Deutsche Bank they explain the current weakness in the housing market. 

Last year rates spiked as the markets threw a taper tantrum, a strong reaction to the possibility the Fed would exit QE. Mortgage rates bumped up one percentage point, not a huge move, but on a percentage basis, it was more than 30%. Sharp spikes in mortgage rates tend to produce “extended periods of weakness in housing” that last several quarters historically. The current cycle hasn’t disappointed on that front. But they also find that most housing indicators have actually fared better in the recent episode relative to the historical experience.

With the caveat that all real estate markets are local, most indications of housing supply show that markets have returned to pre-crisis and even pre-housing boom levels. Housing demand is improving gradually, though household formation levels have disappointed many analysts so far.

This week Russian President Putin traveled to China to ink a deal to sell natural gas to the China over the next 30 years. Meanwhile negotiators from the US and the Eurozone very quietly began their fifth round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement, also known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Text from the private negotiations has leaked out, but nothing is official yet. Big Oil and Gas is looking at the situation in Europe and seeing a big opportunity, and so they are trying to remove restrictions on the export of energy goods.

For example, any request for an export license to ship natural gas from the US to the EU would be approved “automatically”, even if it means increased gas prices for US consumers, increased dependency of imports to the US, or potential environmental damage. While it would lock in more business for Big Oil, it’s hard to see how this helps the goal of US energy independence or the broader public interest.

The EU’s ideas for free trade in energy with the US would also be a frontal assault on the possibility for governments to impose a “public service obligation,” requiring utility companies to deliver natural gas at certain prices to consumers, for example. Any such public service obligation should be “clearly defined and of limited duration” and also not be “more burdensome than necessary.” In other words, if we have a cold spell in the US and local utilities need natural gas, we could be forced to ship it to Europe, even if for a limited duration.

Sunday brings a presidential election in Ukraine. Putin says he will honor the results, saying Russia will "respect the choice of the Ukrainian people" in the election and will work with the new leadership.  but the results may be a tricky thing; we still don’t know if they will actually be able to handle balloting in eastern Ukraine. And if there is not a clear majority winner, there would be a runoff election in June.

Have you read the new book on economics, “Capital in the Twenty First Century”, written by French economist Thomas Piketty? It’s a big, thick book and a bestseller that has started multiple and running debates. Piketty's book claims that inequality will return to the heights seen in earlier centuries (think the Gilded Age or the French Revolution) unless governments intervene. The best-selling book has been embraced by liberals as a call to action against inequality, and attacked by conservatives as a call for socialism and wealth redistribution. And so a couple of journalists for the Financial Times, Chris Giles and Ferdinando Giugliano did some fact checking and they claim some of the facts are less than factual.

Giles noted what he described as fundamental problems with some of Piketty's numbers on wealth inequality. Giles wrote: "I discovered that his estimates of wealth inequality -- the centrepiece of Capital in the 21st Century -- are undercut by a series of problems and errors. Some issues concern sourcing and definitional problems. Some numbers appear simply to be constructed out of thin air."

Giles also said that the spreadsheets Piketty provided as source material for his book have "transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source."

In his detailed response, Piketty did not confirm or deny that there were any big errors in his data, but said his raw data sources had to be adjusted in some cases to paint a smoother picture, or to fill in gaps. Piketty wrote:  “I have no doubt that my historical data series can be improved and will be improved in the future, but I would be very surprised if any of the substantive conclusion about the long-run evolution of wealth distributions was much affected by these improvements." Piketty also pointed out that subsequent studies have backed up many of his conclusions, including the idea that wealth has become more concentrated in the US in recent decades.

Next week’s economic calendar includes a look at housing prices from Case-Shiller/S&P; the year-over-year increase in prices in 20 major cities has slowed from the recent peak of 13.7% in November 2013, and the trend likely continued in March.

Next Friday, we’ll get a report on personal income; wider coverage as a result of the ACA meant Medicaid benefits accounted for 20% of all personal income gains in the first three months of the year, therefore income excluding Medicaid benefits is probably a more accurate way to look at the data.

The Conference Board will release its confidence survey Tuesday and the University of Michigan sentiment report is set for Friday; an important subset will be how households view job availability.

On Thursday, we’ll see the Commerce Department’s revised estimates of first quarter GDP; you will recall the first estimate showed growth at just at annual rate of 0.1%, which was really bad; the revised estimate could turn ugly, even negative, like maybe down 0.9%. The second quarter GDP is expected to bounce back, but the hole is getting deeper.

Happy Memorial Day Holiday.