Stagflation Is All Anyone in Markets Wants to Talk About Now (GDP of 1.3%, Soaring Home And Energy Prices, Etc)

It’s taken just a few short months for stagflation to go from hobgoblin of cranks to a full-blown Wall Street obsession.

Everyone seems worried about it. Bridgewater Associates co-Chief Investment Officer Greg Jensen says spiraling prices that choke off growth are a “real risk” that many portfolios are massively overexposed to. A “fairly strong consensus” of market professionals believe that some kind of stagflation is more likely than not, according to a Deutsche Bank AG survey. And while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. urged investors to buy the dip, strategists said “stagflation” was the most common topic in client conversations.

Wherever you fall on the debate, alarm bells are ringing as energy prices head toward multiyear highs and persistent shortages crimp supply chains worldwide. That’s fueling price pressures and pushing up bond yields just as economic growth is cooling and central banks such as the Federal Reserve weigh scaling down pandemic-era stimulus. And after a second straight month of disappointing U.S. jobs gains, the stakes are rising heading into this week’s inflation report.

“The reality that inflation is more persistent and sustainable than the ‘transitory’ camp thought, and that inflation and its causes are in turn slowing economy growth,” said Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer for Bleakley Advisory Group.

Energy Epicenter

Much of the stress is emanating from the energy market, where West Texas Intermediate crude oil broke above $82 per barrel for the first time since 2014 on Monday amid a power crisis from Europe to Asia. Prices of coal and natural gas have also jumped, with demand ahead of winter whittling worldwide stockpiles.

The commodity surge has thrust stagflation fears front-and-center in markets, given that higher energy prices have the potential to pinch consumers, according to Principal Global Investors. Gains in consumer spending are already expected to slow, leading Goldman economists to slash U.S. growth estimates over the weekend.

“The idea was already starting to take shape. The increase in commodity prices has just formalized those fears,” said Seema Shah, Principal’s chief global strategist. “While there have been complaints around higher food prices, higher lumber prices, higher clothes prices, it’s the increase in household bills that has really put fear into peoples’ minds, because it is so visible and rising gas prices are difficult to substitute away from for an average household.”

Murky Bond Picture

Sky-high commodity prices have filtered through to the Treasury market, where yields on benchmark 10-year notes broke above 1.6% for the first time since June last week. Driving the gain is an increase in breakeven inflation rates, while so-called real yields — often viewed as a proxy of growth expectations — have retreated so far this month.

“If we look at the composition within the TIPs market, we see an increase in breakevens to the detriment of real yields,” BMO strategist Ian Lyngen said on the firm’s “Macro Horizons” podcast. “We read this as the market’s focus on longer-term inflation has taken some of the optimism out of the growth profile going forward.”

Morgan Stanley strategist Andrew Sheets disagrees. Breakeven rates are still below their May peaks, while the cross-asset landscape is distinct from the stagflationary setup of the 1970s, he argued. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows gross domestic product is forecast by economists to rise 5.9% this year, 4.1% next year and 2.4% in 2023.

“Asset pricing also couldn’t be more different. Over the last century, the 1970s represented an all-time high for nominal interest rates and an all-time low for equity valuations,” Sheets wrote in a note Sunday. “Today we’re near a low in yields and a high in those valuations.”

Stocks Still Serene

Equity investors so far seem unperturbed. That’s the view of Matt Maley, chief market strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., given that the S&P 500 is just 3.9% lower from its all-time high. However, the mood music could change as the third-quarter reporting season kicks off and corporate executives sound off on supply chain issues and rising input costs, he said.

“The key should be this earnings season,” Maley said. “If a lot of companies start talking about margin pressures, the stock market will start pricing in stagflation rather quickly.”

So far, balance sheets have been resilient. Operating margins for the S&P 500 clocked in at 14.4% last quarter, a record high, with companies in many cases actually benefiting from the inflation uptick.

S&P 500 operating margins hit record high

But should stagflation fears start to meaningfully rattle equity markets, shares of companies with higher pricing power — the ability to pass on costs — should profit, according to Goldman, after several weeks of underperformance.

“Stocks with strong pricing power have recently lagged but appear attractive if stagflationary concerns continue to build,” strategists led by David J. Kostin wrote. “If inflation remains high alongside a weakening economic growth outlook, firms with strong pricing power should be best positioned to maintain profit margins despite slowing revenue growth and rising input costs.”

Not to mention real-time GDP of 1.3%. And falling!

Of course, there will be cries in Washington DC to spend trillions … and trillions … and trillions.

Bank of Japan Stops Printing Money, Will The Fed Follow? (US Misery Index Above 10%, Housing Misery Rate At All-time High)

My Kuroda!

金融政策に限界があるとは考えておりません　
(I do not believe that there is a limit to the effect of monetary policy.)

Haruhiko Kuroda, Bank of Japan, 13 April 2016

The Bank of Japan is one of the top three Quantitative Easing (QE) Monsters in terms of the absolute amount of assets it purchased. The Fed and the ECB round out the trio. The BoJ started QE over 20 years ago, and went hog wild under Abenomics, which became the economic religion of Japan in 2013. But the era of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ended in September 2020, and Abenomics is now finished.

What’s left of it is that the BoJ (and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda) now holds about half of the huge pile of the central government’s debt. With their target rate at -0.10% and a gargantuan balance sheet, what could go wrong?

But BOJ’s QE has ended. The BoJ’s overall assets stopped growing, and its holdings of government bonds have started to decline.

As of the BoJ’s balance sheet dated September 30, released on Thursday, total assets declined to a still monstrous ¥724 trillion ($6.4 trillion), below where it had been in May 2021.

But look at Japanese home prices with the growth of the BOJ’s balance sheet and general decline in mortgage rates. Like the USA, there was a balance sheet spike associated with Covid and a resulting spike in home prices.

The USA? We also saw a surge in home prices following The Fed’s monetary “stimulypto.”

But will The Fed follow BOJ’s lead and stop asset purchases? Not yet, anyway. It seems that The Fed can’t turn market forces loose and let interest rates rise.

Bear in my that the US Misery Index is above 10% (U-3 unemployment + inflation).

And if I define the US Misery Index as U-3 unemployment + home price growth, we can see we are at record misery rates. Miserable for households that don’t own a home or are trying to move to a higher housing price area).

What I like about The Fed’s monetary policies?? Nada.

Just 194K Jobs Added In September Versus 500K Expected, Unemployment Rate Falls, Wages Rise (Mighty Biden Strikes Out)

Like the poem, Casey At The Bat, the US economy struck out with a shockingly bad jobs report for September.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in ~~Mudville~~ USA—mighty ~~Casey~~ Biden has struck out.

The U.S. economy added fewer jobs than forecast for a second straight month in September. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 194,000 last month after an upwardly revised 366,000 gain in August, Labor Department figures showed Friday. 500K was expected.

The U-3 unemployment rate declined to 4.8% (meaning that the labor force shrank due to people dropping out of the labor force). In fact, 338,000 people dropped out of the labor force.

Average hourly earnings YoY rose to 4.6%. While that is an improvement, but it is lower than the inflation rate of 5.25% YoY and house price inflation of 20% YoY.

This miserable jobs report is a victory for Fed doves that don’t want to raise rates or slow down the balance sheet growth.

Where were the jobs created? Leisure and hospitality, as usual, leads in job gains.

Mighty Biden’s economic policies have struck out. Good night, Irene.

Jobless Claims Fall To 4.2 Million, Down 20 Million From A Year Ago, As Pandemic Benefits End

Initial jobless claims dropped below their recent range last week, falling to the second lowest level since the COVID-lockdowns crushed the economy. Only 326k Americans filed for jobless benefits for the first time last week, down from 364k last week and below the 348k expectation.

The massive Covid stimulus for employment has worn out. Note the decline in Pandemic Unemployment Insurance and Pandemic Emergency Claims. The thrill is gone … of pandemic unemployment benefits.

Continuing claims also declined from the previous week, again largely from Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Claims programs ending.

On a related note, Challenger job cuts were down -84.9% YoY. But for September, there was a surge in low-paying retail jobs and transportation jobs as Panademic stimulus ran out and governments have pretty much stopped their destructive government shutdowns of economies.

So this is where all the Pandemic claimants have gone?

US Real GDP Plummets To 1.33% As Fed Continues To Help Inflate Prices (Baltic Dry Shipping Price Index Soars!)

The Atlanta Fed’s real-time GDP tracker fell … again … to 1.33% as The Federal Reserve continues its bizarre monetary stimulus.

The culprits? Declining auto sales, manufacturing, etc.

I have discussed soaring prices since Biden’s election (food, energy, housing, rent, etc). But another soaring price component is shipping costs. Up 315% since mid-February.

While Trump’s slogan was “Make American Great Again”, Biden and The Fed’s slogan should be “Make America Far More Expensive For The Middle Class.” But that won’t fit on a bumper sticker.

And Biden/Democrats now want to RAISE taxes!

Stimulypto! US GDP Q3 Tracker Slumps To 2.3% Despite Massive Monetary Stimulus (Down From 13.7% On May 5th, 2021 Despite MORE Stimulus)

Can you say “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men ..” Or “All The Fed’s stimulus and all of Biden’s jobs bills ..”

Yes, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Q3 tracker slumped to 2.3% despite the massive stimulus coming from The Federal Reserve and the Biden Administration. Down from 13.7% GDP growth as of 5/5/2021.

Fed Chair Powell calls inflation ‘frustrating’ (consumers call it ‘devastating’)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell calls inflation ‘frustrating.”

Only a multi-millionaire like Powell would call it frustrating. Most US consumers would call it “devastating.”

Look at home prices, natural gas, gasoline and food prices since The Fed turned on the money pump to combat the Covid shutdown by government. Well, at least food price growth has slowed, but that is more that offset by natural gas (heating) costs skyrocketing.

Rent? That too has zoomed upwards, although Powell likely isn’t worried about his rent rising by 11.5%.

I wonder if Powell is frustrated by banks parking their money at the Fed’s reverse repo facility? Ninety-two participants on Thursday placed a total of $1.605 trillion at the Federal Reserve’s overnight reverse repurchase agreement facility, in which counterparties like money-market funds can place cash with the central bank. The previous record, set the day before, was $1.416 trillion. Thursday’s leap was the biggest one-day increase in usage since mid-June.

Biden blames “greed” for rising prices, Powell is “frustrated” by bottlenecks. But why pump trillions into the economy when you know there are bottlenecks? Or meatpacking firms are “greedy”?

Stimulypto! U.S. Rents Are Increasing at ‘Shocking’ Rates of More Than 11.5% (Newly-signed Leases Rose 17%)

So much for the transitory inflation that The Federal Reserve keeps spouting on about.

(Bloomberg) — The pace of rent increases is heating up in the U.S.

Rent data for the past two months show no sign yet of the usual seasonal dip at this time of year, following peaks early in the summer, when many lease renewals come due.

A Zillow Group Inc. index based on the mean of listed rents rose 11.5% in August from a year earlier, with some cities in Florida, Georgia and Washington state seeing increases of more than 25%.

Since the start of the pandemic, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment has soared 13.1% to $1,663, Zumper data show.

But rent on newly-signed leases rose 17% from the previous tenant’s lease.

For the New York market, landlords are raising rent prices as much as 70% now that people are flooding back into the city as offices and entertainment venues open up. In July, the median asking rent in New York City surged to $3,000, compared with the pandemic low of $2,750 in January 2021, data from StreetEasy showed.

Of course, rent surge is not surprising given that home prices have surged since Covid given limited inventory and massive Fed stimulus.

Perhaps if The Fed and Federales (Federal government) start reducing their apocalyptic-level stimulus, THEN we will see inflation as transitory.

The Fed Helped Create Housing Bubble I And Then Helped Create Housing Bubble II: The Sequel (Case Study Of Phoenix AZ Home Price Bubble)

Phil Hall of Benzinga wrote a series of excellent articles in four parts for MortgageOrb (although “The Orb” has removed his name). Here are the links to his stories.

https://mortgageorb.com/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-housing-market-part-one

https://mortgageorb.com/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-housing-market-part-two

https://mortgageorb.com/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-housing-market-part-three

https://mortgageorb.com/the-fall-and-rise-of-the-housing-market-part-four

After re-reading these excellent articles on the housing bubble and crash, I thought I would take the opportunity to present a few charts to highlight the housing bubble, pre-crash and post-crash.

Here is a graph of Phoenix AZ home prices. Note the bubble that peaked in mid 2006. The Phoenix bubble correlates with the large volume of sub-620 FICO lending and Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) lending. Bear in mind, many of the ARMs prior to 2010 were NINJA (no income, no job) ARM loans.

What happened? Serious delinquenices at the national levels spiked as The Great Recession set in and unemployment spiked.

Since the housing bubble burst and surge in serious mortgage delinquencies, The Federal Reserve entered the economy with a vengeance. And have never left, and increased their drowning of markets with liquidity.

The Fed whip-sawing of interest rates in response to the 2001 recession was certainly a problem. They dropped The Fed Funds Target rate like a rock, then homebuilding went wild nationally and home prices soared thanks to Alt-A (NINJA) and ARM lending. But now The Fed is dominating markets like a gigantic T-Rex.

Oddly, then Fed Chair Ben Bernanke never saw the bubble coming. Or the burst.

Speaking of pizza, Donato’s from Columbus Ohio is my favorite. Founder’s Favorite is my favorite, but they do offer the dreaded Hawaiian pizza (ham, pineapple, almonds and … cinnamon?)

Bleech!

US Homeowner Equity Surged +29.3% YoY (California The Biggest Gainer) Thanks Mostly To Federal Reserve

Since Q2 2020, US homeowners have been big winners in terms of home price gains and equity in their homes. Unfortunately, this means that renters are big losers. Once again, The Federal Reserve is benefiting once segment of the population while punishing the other segment.

Homeowner Equity Q2 2021

CoreLogic analysis shows U.S. homeowners with mortgages (roughly 63% of all properties*) have seen their equity increase by a total of nearly $2.9 trillion since the second quarter of 2020, an increase of 29.3% year over year.

*Homeownership mortgage source: 2016 American Community Survey.

National Homeowner Equity

In the second quarter of 2021, the average homeowner gained approximately $51,500 in equity during the past year.

California, Washington, and Idaho experienced the largest average equity gains at $116,300, $102,900 and $97,000 respectively. Meanwhile, North Dakota experienced the lowest average equity gain in the second quarter of 2021 at $10,600.

Figure 4 National Homeowner Equity Average Equity Gain

10 Select Metros Change

CoreLogic provides homeowner equity data at the metropolitan level, in this graphic 10 of the largest cities, by housing stock are depicted.

Negative equity has seen a recent decrease across the country. San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA, is the least challenged, with Negative Equity Share of all mortgages at 0.6%.

Loan-to-Value Ratio (LTV)

The graph represents National Homeowner Equity Distribution across multiple LTV Segments.

Figure 6 National Homeowner Equity Loan-to-Value Ratio

Since growing home equity lead to lower default risk (or at least losses to the mortgage holder), we are seeing mortgage delinquencies fall after the Covid surge.

Of the top ten cities, Chicago leads in negative equity.

Maybe Fed Chair Jerome Powell is trying to soothe us, like Sam and Dave.