Money! About That June Jobs Report (The Fed’s Balance Sheet Still Out In Force!)

The Federal Reserve’s policies remind me of the Cabaret tune “Money.” There is still almost $9 trillion in monetary stimulus outstanding.

For all the economic cheerleaders out there like CNBC about the June job report, they generally ignore what is driving the jobs report: The Federal Reserve!

Take the US U-3 unemployment rate. The Biden Administration is proud of the unemployment rate of 3.6%. But if you look at the chart of unemployment relative to The Fed’s balance sheet expansion due to Covid lockdowns, there is still almost $9 trillion of Fed stimulus outstanding.

Of course, the lockdowns were pure economy killers, so opening the economies again led to the unemployment rate falling to 3.6% which is still higher than before the Covid outbreak. But The Federal Reserve has been painfully slow at shrinking its balance sheet, leaving almost $9 trillion in monetary stimulus outstanding.

Take average hourly earnings growth. The media is all smiles as US wage growth declined to 5.1%, much higher than pre-Covid.

Then we have inflation, at 40-years highs thanks to massive Fed stimulus (and Federal spending).

And if we deduct inflation from average hourly wage growth, we see REAL wage growth declining at a -3.25% YoY clip.

Lastly, we have the US Dollar. Nothing has been the same since the financial crisis of 2008 and the entrance of The Federal Reserve distorting the economy and prices. Not to mention the US Dollar.

The Fed leaving its monetary stimulus out in force for so long is a major policy error. So what happens when The Fed actually gets serious about withdrawing the monetary stimulus (likely after the midterm elections)?

Alarm! Challenger Job Cuts Rise 58.8% YoY As Real Wage Growth Is Negative At -3.34% YoY (10Y-2Y Yield Curve SCREAMS Recession)

Alarm!

As most economists are aware, unemployment rates are not a leading indicator of a recession. But job cuts ARE a leading indicator.

Challenger US job cuts rose 58.8% YoY in June. Combine that with negative REAL wage growth (-3.34% YoY) and we have a problem.

Unemployment rate (U-3) is a poor leading indicator of recession since unemployment rates are the lowest before a recession.

Further signaling problems for the might US economy is the US Treasury yield curve (10Y-2Y). It is inverting.

In this slowing economy, there will be fewer people singing “Take This Job And Shove It!”.

Darkness, Darkness! Recession Fears Push Mortgage Rates Down And MBA Purchase/Refi Applications Up (Home Prices Up 20.9% YoY In May)

Biden’s new campaign theme for the midterms: economic darkness, darkness.

Well, this is one way to get inflation under control … crash the economy. And inflation fears growing, we are seeing mortgage rates declining and mortgage applications increasing.

Mortgage applications decreased 5.4 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 1, 2022. This week’s results include a holiday adjustment to account for early closings the Friday before Independence Day.

The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 7 percent compared with the previous week and was 17 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The Refinance Index decreased 8 percent from the previous week and was 78 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

In May, CoreLogic’s national home price index was up 20.9% YoY. But home prices are expected to grow at a 5.6% clip over the coming year.

Today, we are seeing global sovereign debt yields declining which should help US mortgage rates decline further.

And the US Treasury yield curve (10Y-2Y) continues to invert, signaling recession.

Under Bidenflation, we will be forced to eat the daisies instead of meat.

Ted Day! Spread Between 3M Libor And 3M Treasury Yield Rising Fast (Recession Alert!)

Its Ted Day!

TED refers to the difference between the three-month Treasury bill and the three-month LIBOR based in U.S. dollars, a measure of fear in the market.

The 3-month TED spread is rising awfully fast. A sign of impending recession.

US bank credit default swaps (CDS) are rising fast as inflation gets ugly.

The US Treasury 10Y-3M curve is bumping against the zero barrier.

I am still shaking my head at President Biden chastising gasoline stations for not lowering prices at the pump when refiners are near full capacity and the Biden Administration is doing nothing to increase the supply of US-source non-green energy.

But what the heck. It’s Ted Day!

Heartaches On Heartaches! US Court Ruling May Take 70,000 Truckers Off Road, Spur Jams (Diesel Prices UP 118% Under Biden, Things Just Keep Getting Worse)

Hey, I thought Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the US Transportation Secretary, was supposed to unclog the supply-chain crisis! Instead, we get heartaches on heartaches as diesel prices rise 118% under Biden AND now the bottle-necks may get a lot worse.

A US Supreme Court decision that could force California’s 70,000 truck owner-operators to stop driving is set to create another choke point in already-stressed West Coast logistics networks, a truckers’ organization said.

“Gasoline has been poured on the fire that is our ongoing supply-chain crisis,” the California Trucking Association said in a statement following the Supreme Court’s decision to deny a judicial review of a decision of a lower court, a process known as certiorari.

“In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators who have seven days to cease long-standing independent businesses, the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation,” the CTA said.

The association asked the Supreme Court for a review of a case challenging California’s Assembly Bill 5, a law that sets out three tests to determine whether a worker is an employee entitled to job benefits or an independent contractor who isn’t. The trucking industry relies on contractors, and has fought to be exempt from state regulations for years because of federal law.

With few exceptions, the relationship between independent truckers and their carriers, brokers and shippers will be governed by the tests.

As if US consumers aren’t getting crushed by rising prices already. In response to the Covid outbreak, The Fed slammed its foot on the money accelerator along with Federal government stimulus. Throw in Biden’s anti-drilling executive orders, and we have a nightmare.

Consumer confidence is already crumbling under inflation and rising energy prices.

Let’s get ready to stumble.

Reversal Of Fortune! Fed Funds Futures Point To Feb ’23 Reversal Of Fed Rate Hikes (Recession Alert!) As Crippling Inflation Soars

No, not the Claus von Bülow kind of reversal of fortune where has was accused of killing his wife. But this murder is coming from The Federal Reserve hiking interest rates even when they know that doing so could lead to a recession. And Biden’s anti-fossil fuel energy policies.

“Fed Chair Powell Admits That Fighting Inflation Could Lead To Recession.”

And investors in the Fed Funds Futures market see The Fed changing its rate-hiking ways in February 2023.

Inflation is what is killing the US economy and millions of households. Financially speaking.

And Biden’s approval ratings are sinking faster than The Titanic. In other words, he’s just killing us.

And then we have turbulence in the housing market as Fed intentions are driving up mortgage rate which helped listings with price reductions at 98.2% YoY.

Biden’s energy policies plus The Fed’s war on inflation will result in an economic reversal of fortune.

Slowing! US Personal Consumption Expenditures Drop To 0.2% MoM In May As PCE Deflator Hits 6.3% YoY (US Mortgage Rates Slip to 5.7%, the First Decline in Four Weeks)

The US economy is slowing as inflation ravages consumers. US Regular Gasoline prices, for example, are up 104% under President Biden which helps to slow the economy.

US personal consumption expenditures fell to +0.2% MoM in May as “inflation” or real personal consumption expenditures PRICES rose +6.3% YoY as The Fed’s balance sheet (aka, Master Blaster!) remains.

As I mentioned above, US regular gasoline prices are UP 103% under President Biden, diesel prices (the cost of shipping goods to markets like … food is up 119% under Biden while CRB foodstuffs is up 55% under China Joe.

Now we have mortgage rates in the US falling for the first time in four weeks. The average for a 30-year loan was 5.7%, down from 5.81% last week, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday.

This year’s Fourth of July celebration is going to cost 18% more than last year’s celebration.

Lastly, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow real time tracker for Q2 is showing … -1% GDP “growth.”

So, yes, the US economy is slowing.

Fed Is ‘Just at the Beginning’ of Raising US Rates, Mester Says, MBA Mortgage Purchase Applications Drop -21% WoW As Rates Rise (Mester Channels The Carpenters)

Cleveland Fed’s Mester is channeling The Carpenter’s song “We’ve only just begun … to raise rates.”

Financial markets are anticipating what Mester is saying: rapidly rising interest rates. But as you can see from the following chart, gasoline prices (orange line) are driving rising US prices. So it is doubtful that monetary tightening will slow price increases. But Mester and company can only control monetary stimulus.

Mortgage rates have soared as The Fed attempts to crush inflation. And mortgage purchase applications fell -21% WoW in the most recent Mortgage Bankers Association survey.

The Refinance Index increased 2 percent from the previous week and was 80 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 21 percent compared with the previous week and was 24 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

It almost seems like Mester is following the Taylor Rule (not really). But using CPI YoY, the Taylor Rule is saying that The Fed Funds Target Rate should be … 22.10%. It is only 1.75% after years of excessive stimulus following the banking crisis of 2008/2009. And Yellen who seemingly never met a rate hike that she liked.

If we use core PCE as our measure of inflation, the Taylor Rule is still high at 13.25%, a whopping 11.50 spread over the current target rate.

Will The Fed drive up rates and risk a recession ala Paul Volcker? Are we sitting on top of the world or about to get fried?

Bear in mind that gasoline prices are up 104% under the Biden Administration and mortgage rates are up 105%.

Hot, Hot, Hot! Case-Shiller National Home Price Index Slows … To 20.4% YoY In April As Fed Stimulypto Remains

Housing market is still hot, hot, hot!

A national measure of prices climbed 20.4% in April, down from the 20.6% gain in March, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index showed Tuesday. Craig Lazzara, a managing director at S&P Dow Jones Indices, noted that April data was showing initial, but inconsistent, signs of a deceleration in price gains.

Mortgage rates have nearly doubled since the end of 2021. The run-up in rates, combined with high prices, are squeezing potential buyers and starting to slow housing markets in some of the most popular pandemic boomtowns.

Covid monetary stimulus remains in place at inflation hits 8.6%.

Washington DC has the slowest growth in home prices at 11.9% with Chicago and Cleveland close behind. Phoenix barely beat Tampa, FL for hottest home prices with both above 30% YoY.

Fed inferno!

Blitzkrieg Bop! ECB to Activate First Line of Defense in Bond Market July 1 (Lagarde Calls For Monetary Maginot Line) WIRP Forecasts US Rate Hikes Until March 2023, Then Declining Rates

The ECB is planning on a Blitzkrieg Bop, monetary style.

When Lagarde talks about the first line of defense, all I can picture is The Maginot Line in France, a failed defensive line that was easily bypassed by the German Wehrmacht (army).

The European Central Bank will activate the bond-purchasing firepower it’s earmarked as a first line of defense against a possible debt-market crisis on Friday, according to President Christine Lagarde.

Applying “flexibility” to how reinvestments from the ECB’s 1.7 trillion-euro ($1.8 trillion) pandemic bond-buying portfolio are allocated is aimed at curbing unwarranted turmoil in government bonds as interest rates are lifted from record lows to curb unprecedented inflation.

Net buying under a separate asset-purchase program is also set to end on Friday.

In other words, Euro-area inflation has exploded in 2021, just like the USA.

But the US also has an inflation problem caused in part by Covid and the government’s reaction to Covid: economic shutdown and massive Federal monetary and fiscal stimulus. The stimulus is still in play.

The bond market is already anticipating an about-face by The Federal Reserve (implied overnight rate peaking at the March 2023 FOMC meeting, then receding.

Again, nothing has been the same since the Covid outbreak of 2020 and Fed monetary blitz. Here is the US Dollar Swaps curve before Covid (yellow line) and today’s Fed-enhanced curve (green).

Mortgage rates in the US have climbed to 6% then backed-off slightly. The good ole Back-off Boogaloo as The Fed attempts to unwind its monetary stimulypto.

The French Maginot Line, easily bypassed by German tanks. The Federal Reserve is the US’s Maginot Line. The Yellenot Line??