As the midterm elections get close, the news for Americans gets worse.
On the housing/mortgage front, Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate (yellow line) just hit 7.20%, the highest since 2000. Also, the US Treasury 10yr-3mo yield curve (white line) inverted, historically a precursor to recession, before barely climbing back above 0%.
Meanwhile, M2 Money growth has collapsed to the lowest level since 2010.
US GDP numbers are due out at 8:30AM EST for Q3. The numbers are expected to show slow growth (around 2.4%) with rapid inflation (5.3%). While the GDP numbers are better than Q2’s numbers, they are still pretty lousy.
As The Federal Reserve continues to withdraw its massive Covid-related monetary stimulus, US mortgage applications continue to fall to the lowest level since 1997.
Mortgage applications decreased 1.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 21, 2022.
The Refinance Index increased 0.1 percent from the previous week and was 86 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 3 percent compared with the previous week and was 42 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
Under Biden, we have seen (orange line) a significant decline in mortgage purchase applications (peak 2021 to this week). Mortgage rates are the highest since 2001 (wait for it!)
One reason is diesel fuel prices are up 102% under Biden’s Reign of Error. While inventory of diesel fuel down -37%. Meanwhile core inflation is up from a measly 1.3% to a whopping 6.6% at the latest inflation report.
Introducing Biden’s Thanksgiving dinner … in a can to cope with rising prices.
Just kidding. This is too clever for the clueless Biden Administration. But Karine Jean-Pierre might get as confused as Joe Biden and repeat it as one of the ways that The Biden Administration is helping consumers.
Alarm! US home prices are decelerating as inflation rages and The Fed tightens.
Home price growth in the US slowed the most on record as a doubling of borrowing costs (thanks to the US Federal Reserve) has sapped demand.
A national measure of prices increased 13% in August from a year earlier, but is down from 20.79% in March, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index showed Tuesday. That’s the biggest deceleration in the index’s history.
The housing market has started to slump as the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates to curb the hottest inflation in decades. Even with the deceleration, prices remain high compared to last year. Coupled with mortgage rates that are edging closer to 7%, many would-be buyers have been shut out, while some sellers have retreated.
While 13% growth sounds good, it is not good for renters looking to buy a home.
According to S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller, Southern (red) cities Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Miami and Tampa all still grew at over 20% YoY. Other cities like blue cities Detroit, Minneapolis, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC are grew at UNDER 10% YoY.
On related news, I always said in my classes that +/- 10 basis point in the US Treasury yield is a big deal. This morning, the US Treasury 10-year yield is DOWN -16.1 bps. In fact, the 10-year yields are down across the board globally.
The Federal Reserve’s DOTS PLOT shows where each Fed official’s projection for the central bank’s key short-term interest rate is headed. As of the September 21, 2022 Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the prediction of future Fed target rates is decidedly DOWNWARD SLOPING.
The Fed hawks, those that want to tighten monetary policy, are Bowman, Waller, Kashkari, Mester and George. The Fed doves (or those who are neutral) are Biden recent appointees Barr, Cook, Jefferson, Logan, Collins. Note that Brainard and Bostic are the only technical doves.
I call the hawks at The Fed “The Blackhawks” since their mission of fighting inflation may lead to a recession. And Bowman, Mester and George are Lady Blackhawks.
25 days later. A real-life horror created by The Federal government.
Yes, according to the US Department of Energy, the US has only 25 days of diesel supply left.
The diesel crunch comes just weeks ahead of the midterm elections and has the potential to drive up prices for consumers who already view inflation and the economy as a top voting issue. Retail prices have been steadily climbing for more than two weeks. At $5.324 a gallon, they’re 50% higher than this time last year, according to AAA data.
Notably, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese recently commented on the emerging crisis. Deese said diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and added that “all options are on the table.”
Yesh, diesel fuels prices are surging again as diesel inventory is shockingly low.
At least the US gets to live out a horror story created by The Federal government because failed Presidential candidate Al “The Snore” Gore and a teenage Swedish girl (Greta Thunberg) told Biden and Democrats to hate fossil fuels.
How dare you … drive inflation through the roof because of your green energy lunacy.
Things are getting interesting in DC, to say the least. The US is 100% likely to face a recession in the next 12 months while The Federal Reserve is on its crusade to fight inflation caused by … The Federal Reserve, Biden’s green energy shenanigans and massive, irresponsible Federal spending that even Former Obama economist Lawrence Summers warned would cause inflation. So what will The Fed do? Lower rates and expand their assets purchases to fight the impending recession OR keep tightening to fight Bidenflation? But where we are now is that the fixed-income market could be in big, big trouble.
For months, traders, academics, and other analysts have fretted that the $23.7 trillion Treasuries market might be the source of the next financial crisis. Then last week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged concerns about a potential breakdown in the trading of government debt and expressed worry about “a loss of adequate liquidity in the market.” Now, strategists at BofA Securities have identified a list of reasons why U.S. government bonds are exposed to the risk of “large scale forced selling or an external surprise” at a time when the bond market is in need of a reliable group of big buyers.
“We believe the UST market is fragile and potentially one shock away from functioning challenges” arising from either “large scale forced selling or an external surprise,” said BofA strategists Mark Cabana, Ralph Axel and Adarsh Sinha. “A UST breakdown is not our base case, but it is a building tail risk.”
In a note released Thursday, they said “we are unsure where this forced selling might come from,” though they have some ideas. The analysts said they see risks that could arise from mutual-fund outflows, the unwinding of positions held by hedge funds, and the deleveraging of risk-parity strategies that were put in place to help investors diversify risk across assets.
In addition, the events which could surprise bond investors include acute year-end funding stresses; a Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, which is not currently a consensus expectation; and even a shift in the Bank of Japan’s yield curve control policy, according to the BofA strategists.
The BOJ’s yield curve control policy, aimed at keeping the 10-year yield on the country’s government bonds at around zero, is being pushed to a breaking point.
Well. Bidenflation certainly isn’t helping, but Statist Economist and Cheerleader Janet Yellen can’t bring herself to blame green energy policies, rampant Federal spending or irresponsible Federal Reserve policies for the crisis.
You will note the differences between today and the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The financial crisis gave us a massive surge in government securities liquidity thanks to then Fed Chair Ben Bernanke imitating Japan’s Central Bank and buying US government securities. Fast forward to today and the liquidity index hasn’t budged much since 2010 (except for a little blip around the Covid Fed intervention of early 2020), but we are now seeing near 40-year highs in inflation and a barely declining Fed balance sheet. And M2 Money YoY (mostly commercial bank deposits) are crashing.
I am guessing that The Fed will pivot given that stock futures are way up for Monday. The Dow Jones mini is up 770 points and the S&P 500 mini is up 88.75 points.
Bond market futures (specifically the US Ultra Bond) is down for Monday, meaning yields will be climbing.
I remember giving a speech at The Brookings Institute in Washington DC. Talk about stranger in a strange land. One person who I was debating got frustrated and said “You are such a … Republican!!!” As if that was the worst slur he could throw at me.
Wall Street saw another day of stunning reversals, with stocks rallying after a Treasury selloff sputtered. The yen jumped as Japan intervened again to prop up the currency.
After many twists and turns, the S&P 500 pushed solidly into the green and headed for its best week since June as 10-year yields fell from the highest since 2007.
Probably because The Fed is likely to pivot with impending recession. The Dow is up 774 points this Friday. And today was a huge option expiration day!!
And the 10-year Treasury yield fell -2.2 basis points.
Here is the result of Japan’s intervention.
But today’s numbers were largely monthly stock index option expiration.
Why did it fall upon Powell to be the wielder of the Fed tightening scimitar? Why didn’t Yellen? Because “Good Girls Don’t.” But Powell did.
Have a nice weekend. I will be rooting for Ohio State to annihilate the Iowa Hawkeyes at noon on Saturday.
Pension funds have long been investing in “safe” agency mortgage-backed securities.
But as The Fed does its “tighten up”, we are seeing agency MBS prices falling and duration risk rising.
I remember showing my Fixed-income class at Chicago and George Mason the “MBS doom chart” showing the perils of The Fed pushing rates so low that the risk of rising rates becomes a serious problem when rates start to rise. Well, here we are … after I have retired from teaching.
Note the double whammy of Fed rate increases and the gradual shrinking of The Fed’s balance sheet as The Fed withdraws it ample stimulus. But while The Fed was overstimulating markets, it was quite a rush.
But the rush is gone … for the moment. But “Feddie Krueger” is waiting in the wings to do it all over again!
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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