Economy Archives - Page 67 of 136 - the patient investor

August 17, 2014

GOLDMAN: Here’s The Simple Reason We’re Probably Not About To Have Another Huge Crash | Business Insider

From Joe Weisenthal:

Historical analysis of past big busts done by top economist Jan Hatzius and Sven Jari Stehn shows that while there is growing risk of a stock market drop because of the big rally we’re missing one of the key preconditions needed for a true bust: high credit growth.

They write: “[C]redit growth is the most important predictor of house price busts, especially when we focus on busts that involve a recession. House price busts have also tended to follow periods of high inflation, high equity volatility and large current account deficits, although all of these effects become less pronounced when we focus on recessionary busts….”

via GOLDMAN: Here's The Simple Reason We're Probably Not About To Have Another Huge Crash | Business Insider.

August 15, 2014

Secular stagnation?

Economic recovery after the Great Recession has been disappointing.

Employment levels remain low. Official unemployment figures ignore the declining participation rate. Employment levels, in the 25 to 54 age group, for males remain roughly 6%, and females 5%, below their previous peaks. Using the 25 to 54 age group eliminates distortions from student levels and from baby boomers postponing retirement.

Employment levels

Manufacturing earnings, as would be expected, are also weak.

Manufacturing earnings

Sales growth remains poor.

Sales growth

And real GDP growth is slow.

Real GDP

US Headwinds

Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman at the Fed, in his address to a conference in Sweden, attributed slow recovery in the US to three major aggregate demand headwinds:

The housing sector

The housing sector was at the epicenter of the U.S. financial crisis and recession and it continues to weigh on the recovery. After previous recessions, vigorous rebounds in housing activity have typically helped spur recoveries. In this episode, however, residential construction was held back by a large inventory of foreclosed and distressed properties and by tight credit conditions for construction loans and mortgages. Moreover, the wealth effect from the decline in housing prices, as well as the inability of many underwater households to take advantage of low interest rates to refinance their mortgages, may have reduced household demand for non-housing goods and services. Indeed, some researchers have argued that the failure to deal decisively with the housing problem seriously prolonged and deepened the crisis.

A slow housing recovery is unfortunately the price you pay for protecting the banks. By supporting house prices through artificial low interest rates, you prevent markets from clearing excess inventories.

Fiscal policy

The stance of U.S. fiscal policy in recent years constituted a significant drag on growth as the large budget deficit was reduced. Historically, fiscal policy has been a support during both recessions and recoveries. In part, this reflects the operation of automatic stabilizers, such as declines in tax revenues and increases in unemployment benefits, that tend to accompany a downturn in activity. In addition, discretionary fiscal policy actions typically boost growth in the years just after a recession. In the U.S., as well as in other countries — especially in Europe — fiscal policy was typically expansionary during the recent recession and early in the recovery, but discretionary fiscal policy shifted relatively fast from expansionary to contractionary as the recovery progressed.

Anemic exports

A third headwind slowing the U.S. recovery has been unexpectedly slow global growth, which reduced export demand. Over the past several years, a number of our key trading partners have suffered negative shocks. Some have been relatively short lived, including the collapse in Japanese growth following the tragic earthquake in 2011. Others look to be more structural, such as the stepdown in Chinese growth compared to its double digit pre-crisis pace. Most salient, not least for Sweden, has been the impact of the fiscal and financial situation in the euro area over the past few years.

Supply-side

Fischer also cites the weak labor market, declining investment and disappointing productivity growth as inhibiting aggregate production.

While I agree with his view of the labor market, we should not use the heady days of the Dotcom bubble as a benchmark for investment. Private nonresidential investment is recovering.

ASX 200 Corrections

Productivity is also growing.

Productivity

Other factors

There are two factors, however, that Fischer did not mention which, I believe, go a long way to explaining slow US growth.

Crude oil prices

In the last 4 decades, sharp rises in real crude oil prices have coincided with falling GDP growth and, in most cases, recessions. Crude prices remain elevated since the Great Recession and, I believe, are retarding economic growth. The blue line on the graph below plots crude oil (WTI) over the consumer price index (CPI).

WTI Crude

Currency manipulation

China continues its aggressive purchase of US Treasuries in order to maintain a competitive advantage of the Yuan against the Dollar. Inflows on capital account — not only from China — include roughly $5 trillion of federal debt purchased since 2001. This keeps the US uncompetitive in export markets and places domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage when competing against imports.

Foreign Holdings of US Federal Securities

Recent purchases of federal debt are sufficient to drive 10-Year Treasury yields through support at 2.40%/2.50%.

10-Year Treasury Yields

Glass half empty or half full?

Bears will no doubt seize on the headwinds to support their prediction of another market crash. I am reassured, however, that the economy has recovered as well as it has, given the difficulties it faces. None of the headwinds are likely to disappear any time soon, but progress in addressing these last two issues would go a long way to solving many of them.

August 10, 2014

European Depression | Business Insider

Joe Weisenthal quotes Carl Weinberg of High Frequency Economics:

For Euroland, the big picture is that the economy is in its seventh year of depression. On our estimate of a 0.7% contraction in the second quarter, GDP was still 3.2% lower than it was in the first quarter of 2008, when the depression began. Euroland’s economy actually contracted in the first quarter of this year when you exclude Germany’s unexpected surge to a 3.3% annualized rate of growth. Only people who were misled by Markit’s untested and unproven PMIs believed that such growth was real and sustainable. Our estimate of second quarter GDP for the Euro Zone includes a contraction of Germany’s economy at a 2% annualized rate, reversing the windfall in the unexplained and inexplicable first quarter spurt. If our forecast proves correct, average GDP growth for Germany in the first half of 2014 will work out to 0.7% at an annualized rate, clearly less than potential but very much in line with the experience over the last few years. Our estimate for France’s economy is a more horrible contraction of 1.1% for the quarter, or 4.3% at an annualized rate.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been shrinking its balance sheet since 2012 while the Fed has been expanding. Not hard to figure out why the Monetary Union (EMU) is undergoing a contraction.

ECB Total Assets

Especially when private (nonfinancial) credit is contracting.

Euro Area Private Nonfinancial Credit from Banks

August 10, 2014

Is a Hard Life Inherited? | NYTimes.com

Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times:

ONE delusion common among America’s successful people is that they triumphed just because of hard work and intelligence. In fact, their big break came when they were conceived in middle-class American families who loved them, read them stories, and nurtured them with Little League sports, library cards and music lessons. They were programmed for success by the time they were zygotes.Yet many are oblivious of their own advantages, and of other people’s disadvantages.

….This crisis in working-class America doesn’t get the attention it deserves, perhaps because most of us in the chattering class aren’t a part of it.

There are steps that could help, including a higher minimum wage, early childhood programs, and a focus on education as an escalator to opportunity. But the essential starting point is empathy.

August 10, 2014

Australia’s Major Banks Say The Murray Enquiry Used The Wrong Numbers… | Business Insider

From Greg McKenna:

The AFR reports ….the Australian Bankers Association CEO Steven Munchenberg said the banks are “concerned that if some of the statements in the interim report – that Australia’s capital is middle of the road, that housing is a systemic risk – are allowed to remain unchallenged and are then taken out of context that is going to cause us a lot of future grief”.

Munchenberg says the Inquiry hasn’t calculated the capital ratios correctly.

“The approach was simplified and didn’t take into account the complexities and nuances of how capital is determined in Australia, including deductions required by APRA and some of the areas where APRA has adopted a more conservative approach, and as a result underestimated the amount of capital in Australia relative to overseas”, he told the AFR.

Forget the nuances and comparisons to the plight of other banks. Australian banks need to almost double their capital and adopt a more conservative approach to home mortgage lending if they are to withstand future shocks. 3 to 5 percent capital against total exposure doesn’t get you very far. The history of low mortgage failures over the last 3 decades, in an expansionary phase of the credit market, is unlikely to be repeated during a contraction.

August 9, 2014

Why is the Yield Curve Flattening? | PRAGMATIC CAPITALISM

Interesting view from Cullen Roche:

Most fixed income traders view long rates as a function of the economy and short rates as a function of the Fed’s views on the economy. So, when the Fed increases rates it means that the Fed thinks the economy is improving and needs some tightening so it doesn’t cause the Fed to create too much inflation and overheat the economy. But fixed income traders account for this and front-run the Fed’s thinking by trying to anticipate their views on the economy. Said more simply – long rates are a function of short rates for the most part. And the fact that long rates are remaining low means that fixed income traders increasingly believe that we’re in a permanent state of low interest rates.

July 31, 2014

What caused the Dow sell-off?

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.88% to close at 16563, breach of 16750 warning of a secondary correction. Decline of 21-day Twiggs Money Flow below zero would strengthen the signal. Breach of primary support at 15500 is unlikely and the trend remains upward.

Dow Jones Industrial Average

* Target calculation: 16500 + ( 16500 – 15500 ) = 17500

The S&P 500 also fell sharply. Reversal below 1950 warns of a test of medium-term support at 1900. Breach of primary support at 1750 again appears unlikely.

S&P 500

* Target calculation: 1500 + ( 1500 – 750 ) = 2250

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spiked up, but remains below 20 — values normally associated with a bull market.

VIX Index

What caused the sell-off? Commentators seem puzzled. Theories advanced vary from Argentinian default to developments in Eastern Europe. Neither of these seem to hold much water: the market has been aware of the risks for some time and they should be largely discounted in current prices. My own preferred theory is the expectation of a rate rise from the Fed. With good GDP numbers and falling unemployment the Fed may be tempted to tighten a lot sooner than originally expected. Even oil prices are falling. High crude prices is one of the reasons for the cautious Fed taper so far.

Nymex Light and Brent Crude

Which makes me suspect that this correction is going to end like the last “taper tantrum” — with a strong rally when the market realizes that economic recovery will lift earnings.

July 31, 2014

China: The best way to manipulate GDP is to lower inflation

From George Dorgan:

The best way to push real GDP upwards is, hence, to understate inflation via the GDP deflator. Lombard Street Research assumes that Chinese officials followed that approach:

Via Wall Street Journal Blogs
Lombard Street Research, a London economic research firm that takes a bearish view on China, constructs its own version of the country’s GDP. Lombard’s conclusion: China’s economy grew just 6.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013, year-over-year, down from 7.5% the previous quarter. That compares with the 7.7% fourth-quarter increase reported by China’s statistics bureau, which was down a smidgen from 7.8% in the third quarter.

The main difference between Lombard’s numbers and the official numbers, said Lombard economist Diana Choyleva, is the estimation of China’s inflation. GDP is reported in real—that is, inflation adjusted — terms. If China’s inflation is higher than reported, its GDP growth will be lower.

July 30, 2014

Shilling: Big Banks Shift to Lower Gear | The Big Picture

Gary Shilling describes how US regulators are getting tough with big banks:

Break-Up

Like unscrambling an egg, it’s hard to envision how big banks with many, many activities could be split up. But, of course, one of the arguments for doing so is they’re too big and too complicated for one CEO to manage. Still, there is the example of the U.K., which plans to separate deposit-taking business from riskier investment banking activities – in effect, recreating Glass-Steagall.

In any event, among others, Phil Purcell believes that “from a shareholder point of view, it’s crystal clear these enterprises are worth more broken up than they are together.” This argument is supported by the reality that Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley stocks are all selling below their book value Chart 5. In contrast, most regional banks sell well above book value.

Push Back
Not surprising, current leaders of major banks have pushed back against proposals to break them up. They maintain that at smaller sizes, they would not be able to provide needed financial services. Also, they state, that would put them at a competitive disadvantage to foreign banks that would move onto their turf.

The basic reality, however, is that the CEOs of big banks don’t want to manage commercial spread lenders that take deposits and make loans and also engage in other traditional banking activities like asset management. They want to run growth companies that use leverage as their route to success. Hence, their zeal for off-balance sheet vehicles, proprietary trading, derivative origination and trading, etc. That’s where the big 20% to 30% returns lie – compared to 10% to 15% for spread lending – but so too do the big risks.

Capital Restoration
….the vast majority of banks, big and small, have restored their capital….Nevertheless, the FDIC and Federal Reserve are planning a new “leverage ratio” schedule that would require the eight largest “Systemically Important Banks” to maintain loss-absorbing capital equal to at least 5% of their assets and their FDIC-insured bank subdivisions would have to keep a minimum leverage ratio of 6%. This compares with 3% under the international Basel III schedule. Six of these eight largest banks would need to tie up more capital. Also, regulators may impose additional capital requirements for these “Systemically Important Banks” and more for banks involved in volatile markets for short-term borrowing and lending. The Fed also wants the stricter capital requirements to be met by 2017, two years earlier than the international agreement deadline….

CEO remuneration is largely driven by bank size rather than profitability, so you can expect strong resistance to any move to break up too-big-to-fail banks. Restricting bank involvement in riskier enterprises — as with UK plans to separate deposit-taking business from riskier investment banking activities — may be an easier path to protect taxpayers. Especially when coupled with increased capital requirements to reduce leverage.

July 28, 2014

Platinum founder warns on property “act of faith”

By Leith van Onselen

The founder of Platinum Asset Management, billionaire investor Kerr Neilson, has released an interesting report warning about Australia’s frothy house price valuations and the risks of a correction once “conditions change, [and] a lot of the assumptions are found wanting”.

The report highlights four “facts” about Australian housing:

1. Returns from housing investment are often exaggerated and flattered by inflation.
2. Holding costs of rates, local taxes and repairs are estimated to absorb about half of current rental yields.
3. Long-term values are determined by affordability (wages + interest rates).
4. To be optimistic about residential property prices rising in general much faster than inflation is a supreme act of faith.

It then goes on to examine each of these facts.

On returns, the report notes that “the rise in the price of an average home in Australia…[has] been about 7% a year since 1986. In dollar terms, the average existing house has risen in value by 6.3 times over the last 27 years. No wonder most people love the housing market!”

But rental returns have gotten progressively poor:

…we earn a starting yield of say 4% on a rented-out home or if you live in it, the equivalent to what you do not have to pay in rent. But again, looking at the Bureau of Statistics numbers, they calculate that your annual outgoings on a property are around 2%. This takes the shape of repairs and maintenance, rates and taxes, and other fees. This therefore reduces your rental return to 2%, and what if it is vacant from time to time?

And the prospect for future solid capital growth is low due to poor affordability:

…the last 20 or so years has been exceptional. Australian wages have grown pretty consistently at just under 3% a year since 1994 – that is an increase of about 1% a year in real terms.

Affordability is what sets house prices and this has two components: what you earn and the cost of the monthly mortgage payment (interest rates).

…even though interest rates have progressively dropped, interest payments today absorb 9% of the average income, having earlier been only 6% of disposable income.

Today, houses cost over four times the average household’s yearly disposable income. At the beginning of the 1990s, this ratio was only about three times household incomes. As the chart over shows, this looks like the peak.

Finally, the report argues that for Australian home prices to significantly outpace inflation over the next ten years, as they have in the past, “would require a remarkable set of circumstances”, namely a combination of:

1. Continuing low or lower interest rates.
2. Willingness to live with more debt.
3. Household income being bolstered by greater participation in the income earning workforce.
4. Average wages growing faster than the CPI.

The last point is improbable seeing that wages and the CPI have a very stable relationship, while the other points are not very likely.

Reproduced with kind permission from Macrobusiness.