Monday, August 18, 2014 - Theory and Instinct; Nobody Knows

Theory and Instinct; Nobody Knows

by Sinclair Noe

DOW + 175 = 16,838
SPX + 16 = 1971
NAS + 43 = 4508
10 YR YLD + .04 = 2.42%
OIL - .71 = 96.64
GOLD – 7.30 = 1297.20
SILV + .04 = 19.68

Over the weekend, the geopolitical hotspots did not explode. Kurdish forces made progress against ISIS militants in Iraq; Ukrainian forces made progress against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is holding.

In economic news, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index showed that homebuilder sentiment rose for the third straight month in August. That should be a positive for new home construction.

Meanwhile, mortgage-finance giant Fannie Mae cut its outlook for the housing market this year and next, because rising mortgage rates, bad winter weather and consumer “conservatism” are all hitting the housing market. In its August forecast, Fannie said it expects construction starts for single-family homes to hit 642,000 in 2014, down about 8% from its July forecast of 696,000. Likewise, Fannie cuts its outlook for new single-family homes sales in 2014 by 11% to 431,000 from 486,000.

Housing affordability hit its lowest level in nearly six years in June. The National Association of Realtors reports the mortgage payment for a median-priced US home in June requires 16.3% of median household income. Even though housing affordability is still historically quite favorable by the NAR’s index, homes are not only becoming less affordable, but affordability may be even less favorable for first-time buyers. A separate index maintained by Goldman Sachs that looks only at marginal buyers shows that housing affordability is largely in line with its historic average.

The New York Federal Reserve says a new SEC rule designed to reduce runs on the money market mutual fund industry could create runs instead. At issue is part of the new SEC rule giving funds the ability to limit outflows by restricting redemptions when liquidity runs short. New York Fed economists say: “The possibility of a fee or any other measure that is costly enough to counter investors’ strong incentives to run amid a crisis will give investors a strong incentive to run preemptively to avoid such measures.”

It is Monday, and so there was some M&A activity. Dollar General made an $8.9 billion dollar, all cash bid for Family Dollar Stores. You will recall that Dollar Tree recently made a bid for Family Dollar, which works out to $74.50 a share, while today’s bid by Dollar General works out to $78.50 a share, and it’s cash.

So, for the most part, it was a typical Monday. But we are in the Dog Days of summer, and in these seemingly quiet, low volume, illiquid sessions we can see a small move quickly turn into a bigger move; a leisurely stroll turns into a gallop, turns into a stampede. The Fed 's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium at the end of the week is also expected to send a dovish message to stocks, with employment and inflation nearing Fed goals, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has consistently cautioned some labor market measures still show enough slack to warrant keeping interest rates low. Heading into this year’s Jackson Hole assembly, the labor market is giving off mixed signals even as unemployment falls. About 28 percent of all part-time workers in July reported that slack business conditions or a dearth of full-time jobs kept them from finding full-time work. That’s up from a 19 percent share at the start of the downturn.

Most people are saving next to nothing, while just a few are saving a significant amount. Those who do save are saving a lot, more than $1.2 trillion a year. According to the Fed’s financial accounts data and definitions, the personal savings rate has averaged about 10% of disposable income since the recession ended, up from around 7% before the recession. That means upper-middle class and wealthy Americans are saving nearly $400 billion more a year than they used to. The Fed has been keeping interest rates low, and part of the thinking is that it forces investors to chase yield, but Americans have nearly $11 trillion parked in cash, and bank accounts, and money market funds that pay next to zero. So, the Fed might keep rates low, until we’re all willing to gamble, at which point, rates rise, and we all lose our bets.

The high share of workers who are part time for economic reasons is one reason that the Labor Department’s broadest measure of unemployment remains far above its 8.8 percent pre-recession level. U6 unemployment, which includes involuntarily part time and discouraged job seekers in addition to the jobless, is 12.2 percent, or almost double the 6.2 percent level of the main unemployment rate. Both increased by 0.1 percentage point in July from five-year lows in June.

So, what is this market worth? Robert Shiller says the stock market is very expensive right now. Shiller is the Nobel Prize winning Yale professor who helped create the cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio, which takes average inflation adjusted earnings from the past ten years. In a New York Times article yesterday, Shiller noted that the ratio is now at 25, up from 23 a year ago, and well above the historical average of about 15. The ratio has only moved above 25 three time in the last 130 years; it happened in 1929, 1999, and 2007; and of course the markets crashed. Makes sense; to justify high valuations, earnings would need to rise significantly, or prices would need to fall.

A 5 year long rally in US stocks has taken valuations higher, leaving some investors anxious, but the CAPE is just one measure of value. The S&P 500 trailing 12 month PE is right around 17.5, which is just a little above the long-term average, but not out of line. And most estimate for the next 12 months put the forward PE multiple at about 15.

Still, the bull market is getting long in the tooth; it is now the fourth longest bull market; topped only by the bull runs ending in 1961, 2000, and 1929; and of course we know how those markets finished. The lack of a meaningful correction is a severe divergence from the norm. In the summer of 2012, stocks posted greater than a 10% pullback. Since that time, all corrections have been contained to single digits. History shows that other incidents of abnormally small corrections have preceded large corrections exceeding 20%. But it doesn’t mean a crash is imminent; the markets will eventually falter, but it could be a long, long time. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite made it up to a 14 year high today. Which sounds bullish, but really means that the past 14 years were lost.

Maybe stocks will fall from here; maybe stocks will rise from here. I don’t know. Maybe the housing market will go up from here; maybe housing prices will drop. I don’t know. The yield on the 10 year Treasury note was up 4 basis points to 2.42%; nobody knows why. The price of oil dropped below $97 a barrel; apparently because the ISIS idiots did not blow up the Mosul Dam; apparently because we have built up a stockpile of oil while cutting back on demand; that could all change tomorrow.

George Soros is the biggest money making fund manager around. He’s the only hedge fund manager to have earned $40 billion in profits for his investors. George Soros just turned 84. In an article from the Irish Times they quoted his son, Robert Soros, on the success and brilliance of the co-founder of the Quantum Fund. Robert said: “you know [that] the reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him. It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm and it’s this early warning sign.”

Soros has admitted to relying greatly on “animal instincts”, saying the onset of acute pain was often “a signal that there was something wrong in my portfolio”. His decisions, then, “are really made using a combination of theory and instinct”.

The economic recovery is underway, or not, depending on any expert opinion of the hour. The main stumbling block to recovery is uncertainty or not, again depending. As we wait for factories to begin operating at full capacity, investors are growing increasingly frustrated at more than half a decade of prudence, pushing chief executives to loosen the purse strings. Capital spending could increase as early indicators show that industrial companies are beginning to run at higher levels of capacity than has been the case over the last five years. When factories and the like are running at less capacity on the back of lower demand there is very low capital expenditure. In the aftermath of the financial crisis companies hunkered down and re-engineered their balance sheets, diverting funds from investment to pay off debt or stockpile cash. However, even since the recession ended and the economy has picked up, many have continued to hoard cash leading to growing calls from investors to deploy cash reserves, which earns low returns sitting on balance sheets.

It is now estimated that global firms are sitting on a stockpile of $7 trillion in cash. The world’s corporate giants are poised to tap into record cash reserves and possibly embark on a long-awaited spending spree, fuelling hopes of a massive boost to the global economic recovery.

The bulk of the cash is held by 5,100 of the world’s biggest companies, which had combined reserves – cash and short-term debt – of $5.7 trillion as of the end of 2013, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream. The cash pile total excludes financial companies such as banks and insurers, who are required by regulators to hire capital.

Corporate America dominates the pack with about $2 trillion at its disposal, led by a clutch of tech titans. Apple’s cash mountain of $140bn means it has more unspent capital than any other American company, followed by Microsoft with $83bn, and Google, which has built up $59bn of reserves.

So, investors are hollering for companies to spend their cash and deliver higher returns, because cash doesn’t pay much. There are three things the companies can do: buy other companies, return the money to shareholders, or spend the money on the business and try to grow the business organically. What will they do? Nobody knows.

Thursday, January 23, 2014 - They Must Think We’re All Morons

They Must Think We’re All Morons

by Sinclair Noe

DOW – 175 = 16,197
SPX – 16 = 1828
NAS – 24 = 4218
10 YR YLD - .09 = 2.77%
OIL + .47 = 97.20
GOLD + 26.30 = 1264.10
SILV + .22 = 20.11

We have economic reports to cover, some interesting news out of China; lots to talk about today. But what is the top story on most major news outlets? Justin Beiber was arrested in Miami for DUI and drag racing his Lamborghini from strip club to strip club. Seriously. We could spend the whole hour talking about it…, if we were brain dead. That is the biggest story in the country, because they must think we’re all morons.

This has been a very quiet week for economic data but today we got a few economic reports.

Initial jobless claims held steady last week at a nearly 2-month low as 326,000 people filed for first time unemployment benefits.

The Markit Flash US Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 53.7 for January, its slowest growth in three months. A reading of 53.7 still indicates growth in manufacturing, and the researchers say we shouldn’t read too much into the report because cold weather has to play into the results. According to the economist from Markit: "After allowing for companies that saw production and sales disrupted by the cold weather, the rate of growth of output and orders remained as strong, if not stronger, than seen late last year.”

In another consequence of the weather, natural gas prices jumped more than 5% during yesterday's session, pushing prices to levels not seen since late 2011. This morning, it's close to cracking $5. The government cut its gas inventory forecasts. Also, gas delivery to consumers in New York and Boston set records yesterday as the most recent snowstorm buried the Northeast. Nat gas is a common way to heat homes, especially in the Northeast, and we’ve had some serious storms this winter.

If you’re looking for ways to trade the move, there are funds and ETFs; among the best known is UNG, which is not to be confused with a trade on the oil sector in general. There is a tendency to chase anything that moves fast. I don’t know where the price of nat gas will go from here; I do know the storms will pass.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported home prices ticked up 0.1% in November, and were up 7.6% from the year-earlier period. The National Association of Realtors reports sales of previously owned homes rose in December for the first time in 5 months, and capping the best year since 2006. A total of 5.09 million U.S. previously owned houses were sold in 2013 compared with 4.66 million the prior year.

The index of US leading indicators rose in December. The Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months climbed 0.1 percent after a revised 1 percent gain the prior month that was larger than previously estimated. The report noted progress in the labor market, rising equity prices, rising home values, continued strength in consumer spending, and rising orders to manufacturers. Five of the 10 indicators in the leading index contributed to the increase.

The biggest economic report today came from China. Activity in China's factory sector contracted in January for the first time in six months. Weighed down by weaker domestic and export demand, the flash Markit/HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index (PM) fell to 49.6 in January from December's final reading of 50.5, dropping below the 50 line which separates expansion of activity from contraction. The reading points to a further slowdown in manufacturing and the entire Chinese economy, which then has implications for the US economy. Chinese leaders have pledged to push reforms to unleash new growth drivers as the world's second-largest economy loses steam, burdened by industrial overcapacity, piles of debt and soaring house prices.

And this has been another area of concern about China. China’s growth model appears to be built on a mix of investments and exports and debt; the dependence on debt has been producing diminishing returns. Lending has in recent years been the driver of growth, but each yuan of new borrowing now produces 1/4 the amount of GDP increase that it did five years ago, and now there are concerns about an imminent default in its shadow banking system, or investments made off balance sheet.

The Chinese cabinet is seeking to increase government oversight of lending by companies that currently face little or no supervision. The shadow system has grown in recent years because the Chinese government has too tightly controlled traditional banking. It keeps the interest rates that conventional banks pay to depositors extremely low and gives out cheap loans to state-owned enterprises and favored companies that might not be able to repay the money.

And now it looks like one of those companies might not be able to repay. The China Credit Trust Company has told investors that it may not make a January 31 repayment on what would amount to the equivalent of about $500 million; that’s a big chunk of money but not a scary number, in itself. The problem is that nay significant defaults could shatter the widespread assumption that off-balance-sheet investments carry an implicit guarantee from state banks and their partner institutions. Regulators have warned that investors must assume the risks from high-yielding investments and not expect protection from losses unless such guarantees are explicit. Local governments have largely ignored these injunctions and have stepped in repeatedly in recent years with bailouts for local firms facing default on corporate bonds and trust loans.

The low rates, of course, have led savers to invest money in speculative real estate projects or dubious investments known as wealth management products offered by banks and finance companies that promise higher rates of return. Much of that money is then lent to private businesses and local governments, which cannot get conventional bank loans because regulated banks are required to give preferences to state-owned companies.

If there is a credit crunch, it would be very different from the Lehman contagion we experienced 5 years ago, and so we probably won’t see any Western style back crashes because the financial system is still an arm of the Chinese government. So, it will likely end in an entirely different way, and we’re not sure what that is.

Next week, the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting will take center stage. It will be Ben Bernanke’s final FOMC meeting. And although we see signs of an improving economy, (or as the Fed said: “cumulative progress toward maximum employment and the improvement in the outlook for labor market conditions.")  We have also seen a wobbly start to the trading year on Wall Street; and this came on the heels of the December FOMC meeting in which the Fed announced the first stage of tapering, curtailing asset purchases by $10 billion per month to just $75 billion per month. There is consensus that the Fed will take the next step in tapering next week; announcing an additional $10 billion a month in asset purchases.

The thinking has been that if things get bad, the Fed will simply ride to the rescue by postponing the taper and resuming or increasing asset purchases. We have to start by looking at what it means by “bad”. Economically speaking, it would be bad if unemployment were to spike; another credit collapse such as we saw in 2008 would be  bad; an economic  meltdown of any sort, domestic or international (think China, at least for today) – that would be bad. How about a 10% correction on Wall Street?

Stock market corrections are common, and we are overdue for some sort of correction, just based on past performance. The Fed’s taper announcement may very well serve as a catalyst or just an excuse for a correction. So, will the Fed jump in to clean up?

Not likely. The Fed has set a new course, and they will most likely have to stay the course, at least for the foreseeable future. There has been a concerted effort to emphasize forward guidance as the primary policy tool. Backtracking now would undermine the Fed's credibility. The Fed might like to talk about the importance of its independence and any reversal of taper would be seen as political. And any backtracking would be a serious blow to the Fed’s economic forecasting abilities and the Fed’s credibility.

And then there is the idea that the Fed’s balance sheet has grown too large, too fast. Increasing asset purchases would be seen as increasing the risks of future imbalances given the surge in stock prices that coincided with prior QE programs. In other words, there is the concern that QE could lead to bubbles, especially QE without an exit date would surely end badly. And a final reason, backtracking on taper and jumping back into the markets might not work this time. Each round of QE has resulted in slightly diminished returns. What if the Fed announced new stimulus and it failed to stimulate?

If the Fed is compelled to go back to the QE well, though, the cyclical sectors would be at heightened risk of underperforming as optimistic expectations get wrung out of stock prices. But this would only happen if things get bad (a subjective term) and we would likely see that coming.

The economic data have remained supportive of the Fed's tapering announcement in December. The December jobs report was weak, but it will be revised. Investor expectations are that the economy is stronger; not really strong but certainly not as weak as it was. So the Fed will likely continue with the taper, slowly and surely. And if the economy falters or something melts down, well they still have some other tools in the tool belt.

  

It’s still earnings reporting season and the big report today came after the close of trade as Microsoft posted net income of $6.5 billion, or 78 cents a share, compared with $6.3 billion, or 76 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.  Revenue rose 14% to $24.5 billion, partly reflecting the release in November of a new Xbox videogame console and a fresh version of Microsoft’s Surface tablet computer ahead of the holidays. The results topped analysts’ guesses. No word on a replacement for CEO Steve Ballmer, who has announced his retirement.

Treasury prices rallied today. In part it was a safe haven move, with the weak data out of China; maybe some rebalancing or even an old fashioned short squeeze. Mortgage rates fell, decreasing borrowing costs for homebuyers. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.39 percent this week, down from 4.41 percent and the lowest since November. The average 15-year rate slipped to 3.44 percent from 3.45 percent.

I mentioned earlier that we had a couple of reports on housing today. The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported home prices ticked up 0.1% in November, and were up 7.6% from the year-earlier period. The National Association of Realtors reports sales of previously owned homes rose in December for the first time in 5 months, and capping the best year since 2006.

Another report shows that the housing recovery has reached a level where it is increasingly unaffordable. You guessed it, California topped the list. The salary you have to earn to  be able to buy the median home in San Francisco is just over $125,000 as of November, and the median cost of a home in San Francisco is somewhere between $705,000 and $813,000, depending on what data source you look at; best guess is that home prices in San Francisco are up 24% over the past year. San Francisco tops the list of the most unaffordable cities. Next are San Diego and Los Angeles – the California trifecta – then New York City, where a mere $71,245 in income suffices to buy the median home. Households earning the median income of $51,000, well, forget it.

The reason San Francisco tops  the list is fairly simple, the tech bubble has attracted billions in fresh money, and one reason it has gravitated to San Francisco is past history and also tax incentives handed out to tech companies.

San Francisco may be extreme, but housing bubbles are now re-cropping up across the nation – and so are the very factors that helped inflate the prior housing bubble and then magnified the ferociousness of its implosion.

Helocs, or home equity loans, were up 30.8% in the first nine months of 2013 from prior year and are expected to reach $60 billion for the year, the highest level since 2009 when the market was in collapse mode. But it’s still a far cry from 2006, when such loans hit an all-time crazy record of $430 billion. Using the home as an ATM cranks up consumer spending. If the money is plowed back into the house, such as remodeling a bathroom, it adds some value to the house and lowers the risk of the loan. If it is used to buy gadgets, cars, or vacations, it still cranks up the economy in the US and other countries. But when home prices decline, homeowners and banks get slaughtered.

Also, the housing boom has seen the return of creative financing. Interest only home loans are back and they’re especially popular for jumbo loans. In a number of high-cost counties, including San Francisco, these are loans over $625,500 that banks can’t sell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but have to keep on their balance sheets. Bank of America said that 36% of its fourth-quarter mortgages were jumbo loans, up from 23% in the first quarter. And adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs made up 22% of all purchase loans in December, up from 11% in December 2012, the highest ratio since July 2008.

The result of higher prices has been slowing sales. In December sales volume was down 17.7% in San Francisco and 12.7% in the Bay Area from a year earlier. In California, volume dropped 12.1% to 34,949 sales, the worst December since 2007 – and 19.7% below the average for all Decembers since 1988.

In Palo Alto, at the center of the techie induced price hikes, home prices are now 40% above the prior bubble peak. But don’t call it a bubble, it’s a housing recovery, at least until it pops.