I feel like I am watching the Star Trek original series episode “The Doomsday Machine” as former Fed Chair and current US Treasury Secretary effectively just guaranteed ALL US bank deposits. Aka, a massive bank bailout. The episode was about a robot space vehicle that destroy planets … and anything in its path. And if it changed course to destroy something, it gradually returned to its original destructive path. Like The Federal Reseve.
But after a few days of declining Treasury yields because of the mess created by Bernanke/Yellen’s too low for too long policies, and the Biden/Congress insane spending, the US Treasury 2-year yield is up 16.1 basis points.
Whether it was politcally motivated to protect Obama/Biden or Obama/Biden’s economic recovery was terrible, The Fed only raised their target rate once before Trump’s election. And then Yellen raised rates like crazy. Only to hand her mess off to Powell who had to drop rates like a rock and massively expand the balance sheet … again … to fight Covid.
On a YoY basis, US Productivity is down for the 3rd straight quarter (and 4th quarter of the last 5).
On the mirror image of productivity, unit labor costs rose 3.5% QoQ (a notable slowing from the 8.9% QoQ growth in Q2). This was the 6th quarter in a row of rising unit labor costs (but was less than the +4.0% QoQ expected)…
However, on a YoY basis, that is the fastest growth since Q3 1982.
Yikes! The 2s10s Yield Curve Inversion Is the worst since the 1980s.
One of my friends on Wall Street wrote my yesterday claiming “The 10-year Treasury yield is set to crash. Brace for impact!” Then I logged into Bloomberg this AM and saw the 10-year Treasury yield up almost 10 basis points (although it is down -2 BPS at 10:20am). Did markets not read his comments?? Maybe they did!
Well, The Fed is doing the Tighten Up. That is, The Fed is FINALLY removing their excessive monetary stimulus left over from the Bernanke Blowout (2008 adopting Japan’s print ’till you drop model).
But as The Fed removes their monetary stimulus (rate increases), we are seeing negative effects in the housing market. I call this chart “The X Factor.”
The US Treasury 10-year yield is up to 4.3% this morning, a far cry from 1.804% when Biden was crowned as President on January 20, 2021. The 30-year mortgage rate is up from 3.67% on Coronation Day to 7.32% yesterday, an increase of … 100% (that is, the 30-year mortgage rate has doubled under Biden). At the same time, Existing Home Sales YoY have gone from -2.41% in January 2021 to -23.79% in September 2022. THAT is a HUGE decline!
University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment for housing for 77 in January 2021 to 39 in November 2022. That is a -49% decline in consumer confidence. Also a big decline.
But going back to my pal’s email, he also said that The Fed is unwinding its balance sheet at a dangerously rapid rate (orange line). Relative to just increasing it, I would agree with him. But The Fed’s balance sheet is barely declining to my eyes. The troubling thing for housing is that inflation is so hot that REAL average hourly earnings YoY (yellow line) has fallen from +0.24% growth YoY on January 25, 2021 to a horrific -2.80% YoY rate in September 2022.
Bill’s point to me is that lending is still hot (at least commercial and industrial lending or C&I) while The Fed’s balance sheet remains in force (green line).
The Fed has a lot more work to do if they want to cool the commercial lending market. They have successfully slowed down the residential mortgage market.
To begin with, headline inflation remains high at 8.2% YoY while CORE inflation (headline less food and energy) rose to 6.6% YoY.
Meanwhile, REAL average weekly earnings growth YoY further declined to -3.8% YoY.
On the bond front, the Bank of America ICE bond volatility index rose to Great Recession/banking crisis levels (also achieved during the Covid government shutdowns).
But back to the low-ball BLS inflation data. The biggest gain in price is … fuel oil at 33.1% YoY. Food at home rose 13.0% while gasoline rose 18.2%. Rent, according to the BLS, rose 6.6%.
Biden has probably been told by Ron Klain and Susan Rice that this is a good report.
Of course, Friday was one of those “Black Fridays” for investors. And pension funds.
The Dow Jone Industrial Average fell -1008.38 points after Powell’s “Mr T” remarks on pain. That was a whopping -3%. The NASDAQ composite index fell almost -4%.
Equity markets struggled in Europe as well, particularly the German DAX index.
The UMich Buying conditions for houses rose slightly, but remains near the lowest level since 1982.
Clubber Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman.
The Case-Shiller house price numbers are due out Tuesday for June and it is expected that they will show a significant slowing in home prices. Biden and Clubber Powell could then take “credit” for slowing “inflation.”
The elite class “economists” (aka, cheerleaders) are meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week. But while they are planning our future, the revision to the miserable Q2 Real GDP report came out this morning.
So, the second pass at measuring Real GDP produced a slightly better number (-0.6% vs -0.9%).
But the GDP PRICE index revision worsened from 8.7% to 8.9%. Look at REAL personal consumption (yellow line) as M2 Money growth slows.
Let’s see how things go at The Fed party at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is appropriate for The Fed to hold their party/meeting at Jackson Hole (Teton County) since it has the highest concentration of wealth per household than any other county in the nation.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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