“Progress on inflation has brightened the economic picture despite a slowdown in hiring and pay. Wages adjusted for inflation have improved over the past six months, and the economy looks like it’s headed toward a soft landing in the U.S. and globally,” says Nela Richardson, Chief Economist, ADP.
ADP National Employment Report
The ADP National Employment Report shows Private Sector Employment Increased by 107,000 Jobs in January; Annual Pay was Up 5.2%
Job Switching Payouts
Year-over-year pay gains for job-stayers reached 5.2 percent in January, down from 5.4 percent in December.
For job-changers, pay was up 7.2 percent, the smallest annual gain since May 2021.
Median Change in Annual Pay (ADP matched person sample) Job-Stayers 5.2%, Job-Changers 7.2%
ADP Notice
January’s report presents the scheduled annual revision of the ADP National Employment Report, which updates the data series to be consistent with the annual Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) benchmark data for March 2023. In addition, this revision introduces technical updates, namely, in re-weighting of ADP data to match QCEW data. The historical file was updated to reflect these revisions.
Notice Translation
ADP revises its data to match annual BLS data from March of 2023. The BLS will do the same in its annual revisions.
The BLS does not even back adjust the numbers so its historical record is bogus. And despite being incredibly lagging, the Fed makes key decisions on the data.
Job Openings Rise in December But Quits Tell the Real Story
There’s lots of meaningless chatter yesterday about job openings. However, actions speak louder than openings.
This report comes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell said “No Sugar Tonight” as in no expected rate cuts. That is, until it becomes obvious that Biden will lose the election, THEN The Fed will start cutting rates like crazy.
An example of the trash that Biden and Democrats are importing from Latin America, Africa and China. Among other sewers. I am sure that employers are lining up to hire this guy. … NOT! Correction: Biden may appoint this creep to his cabinet with the other losers.
Like rows of falling dominoes, Aozora Bank, the 16th largest in Japan by market value, saw its shares plunge by 20% on Thursday after reporting a net loss of 28 billion yen ($191 million) for the fiscal year. This was in stark contrast to its earlier projection of a 24 billion yen profit.
Aozora wrote down the value of its non-performing office loans by 58%, including a 63% reduction in Chicago and between 51% and 59% in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco – all of these cities are plagued with violent crime and controlled by radical Democrats.
In total, the bank’s US office loans were about 6.6% of its portfolio, or approximately $1.89 billion. It said 21 office loans worth $719 million were classified as non-performing, and as a result it increased its loan-loss reserve ratio on US offices to 18.8% from 9.1%.
“It’s a shock,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, a senior market analyst at Matsui Securities Co., adding, “The expectation was the worst was over and that the bank had set aside enough provisions.” Guess not.
Far markets, this was another flashing red warning sign that not only is a tsunami of office loan defaults still on the horizon, but that banks continue to be woefully underprovisioned for the coming bloodbath.
“This is a huge issue that the market has to reckon with,” said Harold Bordwin, a principal at Keen-Summit Capital Partners LLC in New York, specializing in renegotiating distressed properties.
Bordwin said, “Banks’ balance sheets aren’t accounting for the fact that there’s lots of real estate on there that’s not going to pay off at maturity.”
Besides New York Community Bancorp and Aozora Bank, Deutsche Bank noted in fourth-quarter results:
“Interest rate environment remains key driver for refinancing risk and potential [credit-loss provisions] in 2024 especially in office, with further drivers being ongoing sponsor support and expiring rental agreements.”
Fed chair Powell delivered bad news for the CRE world in yesterday’s FOMC meeting, warning that a March rate cut isn’t happening (absent a shock of course). Perhaps most notably, the Fed removed the following sentence from the FOMC statement: “The US banking system is sound and resilient.” Cynics asked why the Fed no longer sees “the US banking system is sound and resilient” – is it a signal of rumblings in the economy near-term, or was it just a lie before, and now that bank dominoes are again falling, will Powell be forced to trot it back out?
Where will this lead? Likely more bank and pension fund bailouts. You didn’t really believe that hype about the Dodd-Frank banking legislation that there will never be another bank bailout did, you??
A Blackstone-owned Manhattan office tower with a $308 million mortgage is being marketed at a discounted rate of $150 million, representing a 50% reduction. The special servicer, Midland Loan Services, has enlisted Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. to facilitate the sale of the tower at 1740 Broadway. The bundled debt, included in a commercial mortgage-backed security, is marked with a 50% discount. In April, the tower was appraised at $175 million, a substantial 71% decline from its $605 million valuation in 2014 when the mortgage originated.
To put this into perspective, a new report by the Mortgage Bankers Association data, shows $117 billion in CRE office debt needs to be repaid or refinanced this year. Much of this debt is concentrated in major cities such as Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Compounding (or CONFOUNDING) the problem is the near 20% office vacancy rate.
Here is Fed Chair Jerome Powell who replaced now Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Home prices in America’s 20 largest cities rose for the 10th straight month in November (the latest data released by S&P Global Case-Shiller today), up 0.15% MoM (considerably slower than the 0.50% MoM expected and 0.63% prior).
That is the weakest MoM rise since Jan 2023.
Source: Bloomberg
That pushed the YoY price up to +5.40% (but well below the +5.8% exp)…
“November’s year-over-year gain saw the largest growth in U.S. home prices in 2023, with our National Composite rising 5.1% and the 10-city index rising 6.2%,” says Brian D. Luke, Head of Commodities, Real & Digital Assets at S&P DJI.
Six cities registered a new all-time high price in November – Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, and Cleveland.
Portland is the only city with prices dropping YoY – who could have seen that coming?
Is this really what Jay and his pals were expecting when they embarked on an unprecedented tightening of monetary policy?
But, judging by the resumption of the rise of mortgage rates since the Case-Shiller data was created, we would expect prices to also resume their decline in the short-term…
Are prices set to shrink again (as the lag on Case-Shiller data and human’s response to rates) before re-accelerating later this year?
Yes, Cleveland hit an all-time high despite getting demolished by the Houston Texans in the wildcard game.
Other measures of manufacturing activity also indicated contraction this month. The new orders index ticked down from -10.1 to -12.5 in January, while the growth rate of orders index remained negative but pushed up eight points to -14.4. The capacity utilization index dropped to a multiyear low of -14.9, and the shipments index slipped 11 points to -16.6.
Perceptions of broader business conditions continued to worsen in January. The general business activity index fell from -10.4 to -27.4, and the company outlook index fell from -9.4 to -18.2. The outlook uncertainty index held fairly steady at 20.9.
Note that prices paid for raw materials soared by 20.2%.
Meanwhile, The Fed is impressed by the growth in the economy (primarily government jobs) so will likely keep rates constant this week. I wish they would look at Texas slumping!
The only other times Bills were used as a primary funding source was in 2008 during the Great Financial Crisis and 2020 during Covid. Neither year came close to 77% of total new debt issuance. These were also emergency times, and specifically in 2021, almost half the short-term debt was retired in favor of Notes and Bonds to undo the 2020 Bill issuance.
The Treasury has spent nearly two decades trying to extend the maturity of the debt. This can be seen in the blue line below that shows the average debt maturity. When the short term debt is issued in such a way, it drives down the average maturity, which causes the Treasury to have to roll-over more debt in shorter time periods. So why has the Treasury all of a sudden gone entirely to short-term debt in non-emergency times? The answer lies in the orange line, so let’s dig in.
Figure: 2 Weighted Averages
First, it is important to understand the interest rates the Treasury is facing. The chart below shows the current yield curve as it stands today and 6 months ago. As you can see, short-term rates are a full 1%-1.5% higher than medium-term. What?!? Didn’t we just see that the Treasury has specifically targeted short-term debt?
Why are they paying more than they have to? Had the Treasury financed the $2T with Notes, they would have saved $30B in interest this year alone!
Figure: 3 Tracking Yield Curve Inversion
So, why have they done this? Well, there are two potential possibilities.
First, they may be nervous about the market’s ability to handle so much medium-term debt. The market typically digests short-term debt very easily, but it can become saturated with medium-term debt. The chart below shows the amount of medium-term debt that rolled over last year. This is not new issuance; this is debt maturing that needs to be rolled over.
As shown, nearly $2T rolled over last year. This means, had the Treasury issued Notes instead of Bills, the Market would have had to absorb a whopping $4T in new medium-term debt like they did in 2020. The difference this year is that back in 2020 the Fed bought nearly all of that debt, putting a floor under the market.
Compounding this problem further is that this year is set to be a record year in terms of debt rollover. Nearly $2.9T in Notes need to be rolled over.
Figure: 4 Treasury Rollover
Still, even with that massive amount of debt issuance, there must be more to the story. Why would Yellen specifically pay $30B more in interest just because she is concerned the about the volume of debt issuance. As Figure 1 above shows, this has never been a concern in the past except in emergency situations. Furthermore, why not issue at least some new debt as medium-term.
This lends to a second, and more probable conclusion. Long-term rates are set to fall in the very near term. The Treasury did not want to lock in for 2-7 years at 4% if it knows rates will fall. It will pay a premium ($30B this year), if it means it can lock in lower rates for longer and save the money on the back end.
So, why are long-term rates, going to fall? Because they have to… the chart below shows the current interest owed on the national debt annualized. It’s not a pretty picture, and you can see how the interest from Bills has absolutely ballooned.
Figure: 5 Net Interest Expense
The Fed has come out with their dot plot that shows a calm glide path down. Well, we can take the debt maturity and push it forward at the projected rate of the Fed. Even given the current proposed 6 rate cuts, and getting back to 3.5% by early 2025, the trajectory for interest expense is not looking good.
Given current projections by the Fed, the Treasury will owe over $900B on interest by 2025. That is a debt death spiral. The Fed had to pivot back in 2018 when interest expense neared $400B. Next year, the cost will be more than double that!
Figure: 6 Projected Net Interest Expense
There is a potential third option. It’s an election year. Maybe Yellen is doing everything and anything to keep the financial system running smoothly. She has decided that the Treasury market must remain 100% stable and wants to take no chances. Thus, she issues tons of short-term debt, costing the tax payer an extra $30B this year and decides it’s a problem to be fixed at a later date.
While this would be wildly irresponsible and corrupt, the real argument against possibility 3 is the same as possibility 1, the market should be able to ingest at least some medium-term debt. This means the only logical conclusion is that she knows rates are coming down hard and fast. How does she know? Well, she used to be the head of the Fed.
There is no doubt, everyone in Washington can do the simple math above and recognize the Fed cannot take a glide path down. The only option is for rates to come down. Yellen just bet $2T on that outcome.
Biden’s green energy mandates, a boondoggle for China and lodestone for Americans, is leaking over to the mortgage market. That’s Bidenomics!
Mortgage applications increased 3.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 19, 2024. The results include an adjustment to account for the MLK holiday.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 3.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 4 percent compared with the previous week. The holiday adjusted Refinance Index decreased 7 percent from the previous week and was 8 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 8 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 3 percent compared with the previous week and was 18 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
The unadjusted Refinance Index decreased 16 percent from the previous week and was 8 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
And, as Nomura’s Charlie McElligott highlights this morning, we are also seeing new upside being bot in SOFR Options for “dovish outcome”-hedging again, with Core PCE looming later this week.The market has had bunches of March SOFR Downside structures trading over the past few weeks to play for “Fed cut overshoot,” which has been the right trade YTD, as the implied probability distribution shows March Fed cuts now having been slashed by over half the the past week and a half (~80% priced to now just ~40%), and accordingly now we’ve witnessed some monetization of tactical Downside in recent days…
And we see the swaption surface getting mushed…
As he notes, the “dovish-trifecta” right-tail repricing has gotten us to ~4900… and, he says, the actual “realization” could then certainly push us through 5000:It’s my expectations that we could very well see:1) “March Fed cut” to pick-up Delta again after what is expected to be a “light” core PCE print this Friday…and taking back pricing following the past week’s Fed speak pushback and “too resilient” Labor- and Consumer- data, which has driven March Fed meeting “cut” probabilities being sliced in half over the past one week (~80% on 1/12/24 to today’s ~40%)The next potential dovish catalyst is 2) the QRA est / announcement end of Jan / start Feb, with “binary risk” implications on the direction of Duration and Risk-Assets, as the market generally anticipates resumption of larger Coupon issuance from the US Treasury ahead—but what if there is one final announcement where Bills stay high, Coupon increases but isn’t as large as most anticipate, AND Yellen signals that this is the final expected Coupon increase?!
While we’re at it and relate to the Treasury’s QRA discussion, let’s not forget the “other” market- and economic- backstop being applied by the Biden Administration (and aided by what looks to be Janet Yellen’s “politically activist” US Treasury with TBAC sign-off) – which is the continued willingness to run large fiscal deficits in an attempt to “run the economy hot” in this election year, with much of it being “paid for” via Bills (so to prevent long-end Rates from pushing higher, which would tighten US financial conditions)……this is Green build, CHIPS Act, and even fresh “election surprises” like Biden announcement Friday on “forgiveness” of a fresh $5B of student loans, now making the total loan forgiveness approved by the Biden admin $136.6B
And finally as a derivative of the above mention, another hypothetical Treasury QRA where we’d see “Bill issuance remaining high, yet with Coupon increases not as large as most anticipate” would then mechnically see MMF’s continuing pulling from RRP to buy Bills, which will further accelerate the RRP drain…and as outlined in recent weeks, “low” RRP levels will act as “a” key input to Fed reaction function on determining LCLoR……which will ultimately mean 3) a pulling-forward on the market’s expected timing on the “end of QT”
This “dovish-trifecta” is the macro catalyst behind the “right-tail” scenario which has appropriately been repriced higher by the market over the course of the past month, and we’ve seen clients allocate some protection spend to this “crash-UP” scenarioAnd again, IF the above were to realize… without negative catalysts (Earnings fine, no further Rates selloff / Fed repricing, continued disinflationary trajectory rebuilds “Fed cut” implied probability) around that upcoming Feb VIXpery with all that Dealer “short VIX Calls” positioning being hedged… there is absolutely potential for an Equities slingshot if there are no issues and those customer “Long VIX Calls” bleed-out, which will mean Dealers puke out their UX1 Longs (as hedges) back into the market for a potential “kicker” to goose Spot Equities even higher…For now, no-one is worried about downside based on VVIX being back near post-COVID lows…
So what then is the largest DOWNSIDE RISK to Equities?
Outside of “Mag 7” guidance disappointments, I believe the next worst-case scenario for current positioning in Stocks would be an “Animal Spirits” US data reacceleration which forces the above “dovish trifecta” off-course and blows-out the recently calming “Fed Rates path” distribution again:Why would resumption of better US growth data negatively impact US Equities consensus thematic / singles positioning?Because after the 4Q23 de-grossing of short books and forced “Net-up” to stop the bleed and chase (massive squeeze & cover in low quality / cyclical value / leveraged balance sheet / high short interest “junk”)….2024 YTD has instead seen the market reset the prior “Momentum” regime of “Long Quality / Size / Secular Growth” i.e. MegaCap Tech, while re-shorting that economically-sensitive “low quality / junk” stuff againIn a world of slowing but positive growth to 2% GDP and now with 3m inflation annualizing sub 2% target…you go back to that “QE of old” 2010s -decade playbook of “long stuff that can grow earnings and profits without needing a hot economic cycle”…i.e. long quality, size (liquid) & secular growth / short leverage & cyclical valueBut IF we see the “animal spirits” data reacceleration off the back of the massive FCI easing that the Fed and Treasury have facilitated, plus the persistent wage growth and still too strong labor meaning consumption remains robust, along with ongoing govt fiscal stim / spending…
.
..we risk a chance of inflation pivoting away from the current disinflationary trajectory(God-forbid actual “reflation”) which would could see that “long secular growth / short econ sensitive / cyclical value’ trade get a shock reversal…
…as long-end Yields and accordingly then, financial conditions, re-tighten and smash the “high valuation” Quality / Secular Growth stuff, while the heavily hated / shorted Cyclicals would painfully squeeze higher.Don’t forget, we’ve seen that happen before (yes we know the magnitudes of the inflationary impulse are different, but the timing of the human-emotion/monetary-policy-over-confidence double-rip in inflation is unquestionable)…
So, be careful what you wish for from higher and higher all-time-highs for stocks – the stronger they look (on the back of dovish expectations), the more likely The Fed is to hold back the actual dovish actions so much hope is founded on.
Existing Home Sales fell 1.0% MoM in December, worse than the +0.3% expected, leaving sales down
Source: Bloomberg
Total Existing Home Sales in December 2023 were 3.78mm – the lowest SAAR since 2010…
Source: Bloomberg
But, on an annual basis, this is the worst year on record (back to at least 1995)..
Source: Bloomberg
“The latest month’s sales look to be the bottom before inevitably turning higher in the new year,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Mortgage rates are meaningfully lower compared to just two months ago, and more inventory is expected to appear on the market in upcoming months.”
Existing Home Sales were flat in the Northeast, lower in the MidWest and the South, and up marginally in the West (driven by single-family-home sales as condo sales declined)…
Source: Bloomberg
Last month, the number of previously owned homes for sale dropped to 1 million, the lowest since March.
At the current sales pace, selling all the properties on the market would take 3.2 months.
Realtors see anything below five months of supply as indicative of a tight resale market.
That lack of inventory is helping to keep prices elevated.
The median selling price climbed 4.4% to $382,600 in December from a year ago, reflecting increases in all four regions. Prices hit a record of $389,800 in 2023.
Source: Bloomberg
But, with mortgage rates having tumbled (and given the lagged responses), are sales about to start rising again?
Source: Bloomberg
So The Fed managed to kill sales, collapse inventories, send home prices higher, destroying affordability… and now what is going to happen?
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
You must be logged in to post a comment.