Texas factory activity declined in June, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey. The production index, a key measure of state manufacturing conditions, fell three points to -4.2, a reading indicative of a slight contraction in output.
Labor market measures suggest weaker employment growth and declining work hours. Price pressures evaporated, while wage pressures remained elevated…
Yes, the Biden Administration may be the most incompetent administration in US history with Congress a close second. And did I mention CORRUPT??
Silverado! No, not the Chevy full-size pickup truck, but the precious metal Silver is up over 1% this morning!
The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve remains inverted at -102.7 basis points for the 244th straight day as M2 Money YoY (aka, liquidity) evaporates.
Silver is up over 1% this morning.
Bitcoin Cash is up12.39% this morning.
Speaking of Silverado, a fully loaded new 2023 Chevy Silverado 1500 ZR2 costs around $100,000. Thanks Biden and Powell (BiPow?). Try financing that purchase with auto loan rates soaring!
Money supply growth fell again in April from Jerome Powell And The Fed, plummeting further into negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. April’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years.
Yes, The Fed is printing money like it is going out of style! The war on Covid was similar to other wars fought where the US printed boatloads of money to pay for WWI. WWII, Korea and Vietnam wars. And the war against the middle class (known as The Best Depression). Apparently, The Fed is still waging war against the middle class.
US M2 Money VELOCITY (GDP/M2) is near an all-time low after The Fed went berserk with money printing to combat the Covid economic and school shutdowns.
Then with The Fed’s massive monetary expansion and sudden contraction, we have REAL average weekly earnings growth YoY in negative territory for 25 straight months.
The Walking Dead’s Negan, the poster child for The Federal Reserve.
I could have used 3 shades of Joe, but 50 shades of Joe sounds better!
But the fact remains that Americans are far more miserable under Biden than they were under Trump before the Chinese Wuhan Covid virus was unleashed. 9.03 today (Core CPI YoY + U-3 Unemployment) than it was in February 2020 under Trump (5.86). While not twice as bad, inflation is continues to cause serious problems for America’s middle class and low-wage workers.
Speaking of the middle class and low wage workers, let’s look at the Renter’s Misery index (CPI Owner’s equivalent rent YoY + Unemployment rate). It was 6.78% in February 2020 under Trump and before Covid struck and is now 11.75% under Inflation Joe.
Speaking of misery, how 25 straight months of negative REAL wage growth? Real weekly wage growth went negative in April 2021, just a few months after Biden was installed as President.
Now, there was winners under Biden. Green energy donors, the big banks, big pharma, big tech, but media … essentially any big donors from big entities got massive payoffs. The middle class and low-wage workers? As Jerry Reid once sang, “They got the coal mine and we got the shaft.”
The US is Living La Vida Biden (living the Biden life!) Which means you are making millions if you are a political elite, but suffering if you live on Main Street.
And regional banks (not the TBTF national banks) continue to suffer. The Bank Term Funding Program (1 of 2) is skyrocketing as The Fed cranks up rates to fight BidenFedflation (a combination of excessive monetary stimulus by The Fed and Biden’s lousy economic policies) and M2 Money growth crashes.
The regional banking index continues to fall as bank deposits shrink (like me when I used to jump in the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz).
Cryptos down this morning. But Bitcoin is above $30,000 … again.
Oil is down this morning but gold and silver are up slightly.
The 10Y-2Y US Treasury yield curve just dipped below -100 basis points (steep inversion) as M2 Money growth crashed and burned.
Like a bad good news, bad news joke, the good news is that US existing home sales ROSE 0.2% in May. The bad news? Existing home sales are DOWN -23.16% on a year-over-year basis.
And the median price of existing home sales fell -3.44% YoY as inventory for sales remains missing in action (like Biden debating Democrat challengers).
Bloomberg Intelligence’s Michael Halen penned a new note titled “2H Restaurant Sales: Inflation Killing Appetites.” It outlines, “Consumer spending finally buckles under more than two years of inflation and price hikes,” and the likely result is a trade-down of casual-dining chains like Brinker and Cheesecake Factory for quick-service chains like McDonald’s and Wendy’s.
The trade-down, which could start as early as this summer, is expected to dent consumer spending in restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse, and at brands operated by Brinker and Darden, Halen said.
Casual-dining industry same-store sales rose just 0.9% in May, according to Black Box Intelligence, as traffic dropped 5.4%. We expect cash-strapped low- and middle-income diners to cut restaurant visits and checks through year-end due to more than two years of real income declines and ballooning credit-card balances.
Halen provides more details about quick-service restaurants to fare better than causal-dining ones as “consumer spending finally buckles.”
Quick-service restaurants’ same-store sales could moderate with consumer spending in 2H but should fare better than their full-service competitors. Results rose 2.9% in May, according to Black Box data, as a 5% average-check increase was partly offset by a 2% guest-count decline. Check- driven comp-store sales gains are unsustainable, and we think inflation and menu price hikes will motivate low- and middle-income diners to reduce restaurant visits and manage their spending in 2H. On Domino’s 1Q earnings call, management said lower-income consumers shifted delivery occasions to cooking at home. Still, a trade-down from full-service dining due to cheaper price points may cushion the blow.
McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Jack in the Box are among the quick-service chains in Black Box’s index.
The latest inflation data shows consumers have endured the 26th straight month of negative real wage growth. What this means is that inflation is outpacing wage gains. And bad news for household finances, hence why many have resorted to record credit card usage.
And the personal savings rate has collapsed to just 4.4%, its lowest level since Sept. 2008 (the dark days of Lehman). And why is this? To afford shelter, gas, and food, consumers are drawing from emergency funds due to the worst inflation storm in a generation.
As revolving consumer credit has exploded higher and the last two months have seen a near-record increase…
… even as the interest rate on credit cards has jumped to the highest on record.
With record credit card debt load and highest interest payments in years, plus depleted savings, oh yeah, and we forgot, the restart of student loan payments later this year, this all may signal a consumer spending slowdown at causal diners while many trade down for McDonald’s value menu. Even then, we’ve reported consumers have shown that menu items at the fast-food chain have become too expensive.
Well, not really unexpected since the housing sentiment index for home builders was above 50 yesterday. But with The Fed pausing rate hikes, housing starts are soaring!
US housing starts unexpectedly surged in May by the most since 2016 and applications to build increased, suggesting residential construction is on track to help fuel economic growth.
Beginning home construction jumped 21.7% to a 1.63 million annualized rate, the fastest pace in more than a year, according to government data released Tuesday. The pace exceeded all projections in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Single-family homebuilding rose 18.5% to an 11-month high.
Applications to build, a proxy for future construction, climbed 5.2% to an annualized rate of 1.49 million units. Permits for one-family dwellings increased.
Metric
Actual
Est.
Housing starts (SAAR)
1.63 mln
1.4 mln
One-family home starts (SAAR)
997,000
na
Building permits (SAAR)
1.49 mln
1.425 mln
One-family home permits (SAAR)
897,000
na
The figures corroborate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s comments last week that the housing market has shown signs of stabilizing. Homebuilders, which are responding to limited inventory in the resale market, have grown more upbeat as demand firms, materials costs retreat and supply-chain pressures ease.
The housing starts data will feed into economists’ estimates of home construction’s impact on second-quarter gross domestic product. Prior to the report, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast had residential investment subtracting about 0.1 percentage point from gross domestic product. Homebuilding last contributed to growth in the first quarter of 2021.
At the same time, elevated mortgage rates are crimping affordability, suggesting limited momentum in housing demand.
The increase in starts from a month earlier was the biggest since October 2016 and reflected gains in three of four US regions. Starts of apartment buildings and other multifamily projects jumped more than 27%.
The number of homes completed increased to a 1.52 million annualized rate. The level of one-family properties under construction were little changed at 695,000.
Existing-home sales data for May will be released on Thursday, while a report on new-home purchases is due next week.
Now only has The Fed paused, but the most recent Fed Dots Plot reveals that Fed open market committee (FOMC) members see The Fed slashing rates over the coming years. Just in time for creepy, demented Grandpa Joe to be reelected as President. In other words, the return of ZORP (zero outrageous rate policy).
Maybe The Fed should adopt the Coca Cola slogan “The Pause That Refreshes!”
Fridays are always fun in the market. Bitcoin is up 3.23% as The Fed took a pause yesterday.
Note that bitcoin and gold are moving together since March 2023 as the US Dollar deteriorates. And expectations of Fed rate hikes (yellow dashed line) increases.
On the housing front, the University of Michigan Buying Conditions for Houses rose to 50, far below the 142 level before Covid and Gov’t Gone Wild!!
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said Friday headline inflation has been “cut in half” since peaking last year, but prices excluding food and energy (aka, CORE inflation) has barely budged over the last eight or nine months.
“That’s the disturbing thing to me,” Waller said during a question-and-answer session following a speech in Oslo, Norway. “We’re seeing policy rates having some effects on parts of the economy. The labor market is still strong, but core inflation is just not moving, and that’s going to require probably some more tightening to try to get that going down.”
At a separate event Friday, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said inflation remained “too high” and was “stubbornly persistent.”
“I want to reiterate that 2% inflation is our target, and that I am still looking to be convinced of the plausible story that slowing demand returns inflation relatively quickly to that target,” Barkin said in a speech in Ocean City, Maryland. “If coming data doesn’t support that story, I’m comfortable doing more.”
The Federal Open Market Committee paused its series of interest-rate hikes Wednesday, but policymakers projected rates would move higher than previously expected in response to surprisingly persistent price pressures and labor-market strength.
The consumer price index this week showed headline inflation slowed, but core prices excluding food and energy continued to rise at a pace that’s concerning for Fed officials. Employers continued adding jobs at a rapid clip in May, and job openings climbed in April, recent data showed.
Barkin warned that prematurely loosening policy would be a costly mistake.
“I recognize that creates the risk of a more significant slowdown, but the experience of the ’70s provides a clear lesson: If you back off inflation too soon, inflation comes back stronger, requiring the Fed to do even more, with even more damage,” he said. “That’s not a risk I want to take.”
Policy Report
Separately, the Fed released a new report Friday that said tighter US credit conditions following bank failures in March may weigh on growth, and that the extent of additional policy tightening will depend on incoming data.
“The FOMC will determine meeting by meeting the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2% over time, based on the totality of incoming data and their implications for the outlook for economic activity and inflation,” the Fed said in in its semi-annual report to Congress.
Read More: Fed Says Tighter Credit Conditions to Weigh on US Growth
The Fed report, which provides lawmakers with an update on economic and financial developments and monetary policy, was published on the central bank’s website ahead of Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on June 21. He will appear before the Senate banking panel the following day.
“Evidence suggests that the recent banking-sector stress and related concerns about deposit outflows and funding costs contributed to tightening and expected tightening in lending standards and terms at some banks beyond what these banks would have reported absent the banking-sector stress,” the report said.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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