Confounded Interest – Anthony B. Sanders
Financial Markets And Real Estate
The National Association of Home Builders Market Index slipped into darkness … that is, dropped below 50 to 49 in August as The Federal Reserve continues to tighten its uber-loose monetary policy, resulting in rising mortgage rates.
Note the plunge in the NAHB market index as mortgage rates began rising.
The US Empire State Manufacturing Survey General Business Conditions, that is. It just crashed and burned (-31.3) in August, the lowest reading since The Great Covid Shutdown and before that The Great Recession.
The inverted US Treasury yield curve (10Y-2Y) is beginning to make sense.
Politicians like to (falsely) take credit for things, such as Biden bragging about gasoline prices declining. Bear in mind that regular gasoline prices were $2.88 when Biden was inaugurated as President, rose to over $5 a gallon in June and now have declined to $3.98 for which Biden is taking credit. So, regular gasoline prices are still up 34% under Biden. Ouch!
But other rates and prices are dropping too. Bankrate’s 30yr mortgage rate started at , broke the 6% plane on June 21, 2022 only to drop to 5.53% on Friday. CRB’s foodstuffs price index started at 370.58 on Biden’s inauguration as President, rose to 606.71 on May 17, 2022 then retreated to 561.32 on Friday, August 13th. Even headline inflation (CPI YoY) is cooling … slightly.
You can see the recent declines in mortgage rates, gasoline and food prices (pink box) that corresponds to a shrinking of the US M2 Money stock growth. M2 Money is still growing at torrid pace (8.5% YoY) almost back to pre-Covid stimulypto levels of 6.8% YoY. So shrinking M2 Money growth is helping reduce mortgage rates and inflation, food/gasoline prices.
Instead of trying to remove Fed stimulus even more, Biden and Congress passed the “Inflation Reduction Act” which will barely scratch inflation and raises taxes across the board (despite Biden’s promise that no one making under $400,000 will see a cent of increase taxes). And Biden’s preposterous promise ignores the inflation tax which has been severe and still growing at 8.5% YoY. Not 0% as Biden and Harris claimed.
But wait for winter as food, gasoline and heating prices start to soar again.
My favorite dim-witted explanation of inflation belongs to Democrat Representative Pramila Jayapal who recently claimed that “inflation is a theoretical word that economists use.” Like the brilliant Milton Friedman???
The University of Michigan consumer survey is out for August and the results show improvement … from disastrous to just plain horrible.
The University of Michigan Buying Conditions for Houses remained depressed and didn’t improve.
Bear in mind that today’s consumer sentiment reading in the lowest since 1970, lower than during any recession.
The Conference Board’s leading economic indicator plunged in June despite nearly $8 trillion in Fed stimulus still outstanding.
The good news? President Biden and his son Hunter boarded Air Force One for a carbon-spewing plane trip to South Carolina for a one-week vacation. At least he can do less damage to the US while on vacation.
Here is your weekend update on Treasury and Mortgage markets.
The current US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve just slipped further into reversion at -40.299 basis points, screaming impending recession. Oddly, The Federal Reserve has been leaving its balance sheet of Agency Mortgage-backed Securities (MBS) in tact (green line).
On the mortgage front, Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate index rose to 5.60% while the affordability-friendly 5/1 Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) rate rose to 4.21%.
Currently, a 5/1 ARM borrower can save 139 basis points over the traditional 30-year mortgage rate.
Have a wonderful weekend!
The media is thrilled with today’s jobs report showing a sizzling 528k jobs added to the US economy. And with that, the media is cheering that recession fears are shrinking.
But hold on a second.
First, while 528k jobs were added in July (great news!), REAL average hourly earnings growth YoY fell to -3.8173. Why? Because the rate of inflation is greater than nominal average hourly earnings YoY of 5.2%. That is BAD.
This charts shows that inflation-adjusted (or real) wage growth is the worst in recorded history.
And the “sizzling” jobs report isn’t feeling any love in the bond market where the US Treasury yield curve (10Y-2Y) deepened its inversion to -37.593 basis points, a drop of -1.331 BPS. Note that the 10Y-2Y curve falls below 0% just prior to every recession.
Labor force participation actually fell to 62.1% from 62.2% in June.
I am assuming that The Fed will misread the jobs report and argue for LESS COWBELL.
The spendiholics in Washington DC (aka, Biden and Congress) have passed yet another inflationary legislation, this time the sadly misnamed “The Inflation Reduction Act” since it will likely lead to a furthering recession of the US economy. Well, that is one way to reduce inflation: cause a recession and job loss.
An analysis by the National Association of Manufacturers says the tax in 2023 alone will reduce real GDP by $68.5 billion and cut labor income by $17.1 billion. One well-known economic truth is that corporations don’t really pay taxes (they pass on taxes to consumers in the form of higher prices). They are essentially tax collectors, as the corporate tax rate ultimately falls on some combination of workers, shareholders and customers. Raise the corporate tax rate, and you’re cutting wages and salaries for workers.
“Americans are already experiencing the consequences of Democrats’ reckless economic policies. The mislabeled ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will do nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession, but it will raise billions of dollars in taxes on Americans making less than $400,000,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican who sits on the Senate Finance Committee as a ranking member, and who requested the analysis.
“The more this bill is analyzed by impartial experts, the more we can see Democrats are trying to sell the American people a bill of goods,” Crapo added.
According to Schumer and Manchin, “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic (green) energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. The bill will also finally allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices and extend the expanded Affordable Care Act program for three years, through 2025.”
No wonder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took her extensive entourage on a paid vacation to Singapore, Malaysia and perhaps Taiwan. Its called “Getting out of Dodge.” If Pelosi believed in this legislation, she could have “saved the environment” by simply doing a Zoom call. Then again, Biden’s Climate Envoy, John Kerry, still travels the globe trying to sell green energy and carbon reductions in his private carbon-spewing jet. But I forget, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Kerry are our elites who deserve platinum treatment, not lowly serfs like 99% of the US population.
So, here we go loop-de-loop. Politicians want to spend money on their friends and donors and then raise taxes on the rest of us.
On the recession front, the 10Y-2Y US Treasury yield curve just flattened another -6.015 basis points to an inverted -30.195 basis points.
After breaking the 6% barrier back in June 2022, Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate has backed-off to 5.28% despite Federal Reserve rate hikes.
The reason for the decline in the US Treasury 10-year is, amongst other things, a global economic slowdown (partly due to the US and Europe “going green” and cutting the supply of fossil fuel-based energy). Instead of “The Great Reset,” I call it “The Great Economic Suicide.” The 10-year US Treasury yield and Bankrate’s 30-year mortgage rate are declining with declining global GDP.
We are apparently no longer allowed to say the word “recession,” so let’s call it a SLOWDOWN.
The US economy is like the Stephen King story “Misery.” Except that it is Joe Biden breaking the legs of the consumer with his inflationary policies instead of Kathy Bates breaking James Caan’s legs to prevent him from leaving.
US inflation, based on June’s Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator, rose to its highest level since 1982. The PCE Deflator YoY rose to 6.8% while the core PCE deflator (less food and energy, the two things more households care about) rose to 4.8% YoY in June.
In order to fight inflation, The Federal Reserve is going to have to raise their target rate to … 17.78% based on 6.80% PCE deflator YoY. We are currently at 2.50%.
The US Misery Index remains elevated.
Based on the PCE Deflator YoY and U-3 unemployment, the misery index remains elevated compared to before Covid and The Fed’s/Federal government hyper-stimulypto to counter the Covid economic shutdowns. We never fully recovered.
S&P 500 2023 EPS expectations falling off a cliff (orange line).
Here is a video of President Joe Biden trying to help US consumers struggling with inflation.
“A recession is two quarters in a row of negative growth.” — President Clinton, Dec. 19, 2000
My former colleague at Deutsche Bank, Joe Carson, said recently that the US economy is not in a recession, but corporate profits are in a recession. While I cling to the traditional definition of recession (two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth), there is another component of the US economy that is in recession: consumer sentiment.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index rose slightly in the latest release, but remains depressed at 51.5. University of Michigan Buying Conditions for House also rose to 47.0, also a depressed reading.
While unemployment remains low, the price of gasoline is crushing the wallets of American households helping to cause a recession in consumer sentiment.
Biden feebly attempts to explain why 2 consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth (better known as contraction) is NOT a recession.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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