FOMC: No Change, Just Chillin’ Like Penicillin
by ilene - September 21st, 2010 3:32 pm
FOMC: No Change, Just Chillin’ Like Penicillin
Courtesy of Joshua M Brown, The Reformed Broker
In the most surprising move since Rosanne replaced Becky with a different actress and just acted like we should all shut up and watch and not freak out or anything, the FOMC announced today that the Fed Funds target rate would remain at zero.
I know, I’ll give you a moment for the shock to wear off.
Here’s the statement:
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August indicates that the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising, though less rapidly than earlier in the year, while investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak. Employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts are at a depressed level. Bank lending has continued to contract, but at a reduced rate in recent months. The Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be modest in the near term.
Measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to remain subdued for some time before rising to levels the Committee considers consistent with its mandate.
The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.
I don’t have much else to add here. I’m too busy counting up all those interest rate dollars piling up in my money market account.
Source:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
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DiggMarket Commentary From David Rosenberg: Just Call It “Deflationary Growth”
by ilene - September 21st, 2010 11:12 am
Market Commentary From David Rosenberg: Just Call It "Deflationary Growth"
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
If the way to classify the September stock move as "a confounding ramp on disappointing economic news" gets you stumped, here is Rosenberg to provide some insight. Just call is "deflationary growth or something like that." And as for the NBER’s pronouncement of the recession being over, Rosie has a few words for that as well: "this recovery, with its sub 1% pace of real final sales, goes down as the weakest on record."
It’s a real commentary that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) decision on the historical record mattered more than the actual economic data. The National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) housing market index is the latest data point in an array of September releases coming in below expected:
- Philly Fed index: actual -0.7 versus 0.5 expected
- Empire manufacturing index: actual 4.14 versus 8 expected
- NAHB: actual 13 versus 14 expected
- University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment: actual 66.6 versus 70 expected
It’s early days yet, and these are only surveys, but it would seem as though the economy remains very sluggish as we head towards the third-quarter finish line.
It is truly difficult to come up with an explanation for the breakout, which in turn makes it difficult to ascertain its veracity. If we are seeing a re-assessment or risk or a major asset allocation move, then why did Treasury yields rally 4bps (and led lower by the “real rate”, which is a bond market proxy for “real growth expectations”)?
If it was a pro-growth move, why did copper sell off and the CRB flatten? And where is the volume? Still lacking? So we have a breakout with little or no confirmation. All we can see is that many sentiment measures have swung violently to the upside in recent weeks and the VIX index is all the way back to 21x —- somewhat contrary negative signposts for the bulls.
But the price action is undeniable and the bulls are in fact winning the battle in September, a typically negative seasonal month, after a bloody August. The fact that bonds rallied yesterday is a tad bizarre and perhaps the explanation, if there is one, is that the equity market is enamoured with the cash leaving the corporate balance sheet in favour of dividend payouts and share buybacks and
…
Breaking News: The Recession Has Been Over For a Year!
by ilene - September 21st, 2010 12:23 am
Breaking News: The Recession Has Been Over For a Year!
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Cleveland Fed economists aren’t the only ones confused by the simple concept of continued economic illness, TPTB are smoking the recovery crack (which started with Bernanke and his green shoots) with no sign of giving up on the non-existent glimmer of hope. Making this view official, the National Bureau of Economic Research has officially declared the Great Recession over as of July 2009. I know what you’re thinking America (and everyone else), what f**king crack data could they possibly have looked at to come to that conclusion?
No, it isn’t a scanner hooked up to Bernanke’s shiny head reading his wishful thoughts. It’s supposedly actual data:
In both recessions and expansions, brief reversals in economic activity may occur--a recession may include a short period of expansion followed by further decline; an expansion may include a short period of contraction followed by further growth. The Committee applies its judgment based on the above definitions of recessions and expansions and has no fixed rule to determine whether a contraction is only a short interruption of an expansion, or an expansion is only a short interruption of a contraction. The most recent example of such a judgment that was less than obvious was in 1980-1982, when the Committee determined that the contraction that began in 1981 was not a continuation of the one that began in 1980, but rather a separate full recession.
The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity: real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment, and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve’s index of industrial production (IP). The Committee’s use of these indicators in conjunction with the broad measures recognizes the issue of double-counting of sectors included in both those indicators and the broad measures. Still, a well-defined peak or trough in real sales or IP might help to determine the overall peak or trough dates, particularly if the economy-wide indicators are in conflict or do not have well-defined peaks or troughs.
As I stated last Saturday, you cannot tell me this is a recovery as a recovery would…
Good News: The Great Recession is Over; Bad News: It Doesn’t Feel Like It
by ilene - September 20th, 2010 3:30 pm
Good News: The Great Recession is Over; Bad News: It Doesn’t Feel Like It
Courtesy of Mish
According to the NBER, at long last the great recession is officially over. Bloomberg reports Worst U.S. Recession Since 1930s Ended in June 2009.
The longest and deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression ended in June 2009, lasting 18 months, the National Bureau of Economic Research said.
“The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007,” the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based bureau’s business cycle dating group said today in a statement. “The basis for this decision was the length and strength of the recovery to date.” The committee is the accepted arbiter of when recessions start and end.
“The economy has begun to move forward, albeit at a slow, disappointing pace,” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “It’s a recovery that feels fragile, and still raises questions about the risks to its sustainability.” The odds of the economy falling back into another recession are about 25 percent, Kasman said.
Over 50 and Never Working Again
The New York Times comments on the Fears of Never Working Again
Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.
According to a Gallup poll in April, more than a third of people not yet retired plan to work beyond age 65, compared with just 12 percent in 1995.
Older workers who lose their jobs could pose a policy problem if they lose their ability to be self-sufficient. “That’s what we should be worrying about,” said Carl E. Van Horn, professor of public policy and director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, “what it means to this class of the new unemployables, people who have been cast adrift at a very vulnerable part of their career and their life.”
Older people who lose their jobs take longer to find work. In August, the average time unemployed for those 55 and older was slightly more than 39
…
The Long Road to Recovery
by ilene - September 19th, 2010 1:26 pm
The Long Road to Recovery
By David Galland, Managing Editor, The Casey Report
Last week the government released the latest unemployment data. Bloomberg, always ready to roll up the sleeves to help its friends in government (get reelected), was running a headline that “Companies in U.S. Added 67,000 Jobs in August.”
While I haven’t had time to go through the minutiae of the report, I find myself scratching my head at Mr. Market’s rather positive reaction to the report, given the bullet points:
- Manufacturing payrolls declined by 27,000.
- Employment at service-providers fell by 54,000.
- Retailers cut 4,900 workers.
- State and local governments gave walking papers to 10,000 people.
- The federal government cut 111,000 jobs (mostly temporary census workers).
- The number of “underemployed” – people who want full-time work, but have given up and are now working part-time, increased again, from 16.5% to 16.7%.
The fine folks at Chart of the Day just published their take on the numbers. You may see something cheerful in this snapshot, but if so, it eludes me…
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Interestingly, a week ago ADP, a company that does real-time payroll processing for about one in every six U.S. workers, and whose data – because it is based on hard data and not surveying – has tended to be accurate, released its report for August employment. Based on ADP’s data, they had forecasted that the construction industry had actually cut 33,000 jobs in August.
Their data pointed to an overall decline in the work force of 105,000 jobs, worse than the government’s numbers that showed overall unemployment rose by 54,000 – moving the unemployment rate from 9.5% back up to 9.6%.
At all times, but especially ahead of an election as important as November’s, you can count me skeptical in the extreme when it comes to government data. Especially when it flies in the face of the clear trends in motion. Even with the government’s stimulus funds still coursing through the economy, in the second quarter U.S. gross domestic product fell by more than half, to an annualized rate of just 1.6%. Without the government’s supercharged spending, it’s been calculated that actual GDP would have been halved again.
So, where are all these new private-sector jobs coming from?
The construction industry was reported to have hired 19,000 people – a good number of whom, I suspect, are working on government-subsidized projects. At least in this neighborhood –…
WHAT GOES UP….
by ilene - September 14th, 2010 4:14 am
WHAT GOES UP….
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Two of the primary drivers of the economic recovery are now becoming headwinds. In an interview on CNBC yesterday Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs described why he is more bearish than the consensus. His primary concerns are the inventory and stimulus headwinds. In a similar strategy note UniCredit expressed the same concerns and provided some more detail. They believe these two trends alone could shave 6 to 7 points from GDP:
“Our expectation of a significant growth slowdown is largely based on the assumption that the growth at the end of 2009/ beginning of 2010 was supported primarily by temporary factors, whose contribution will not only decline in the course of this year but is even likely to become negative. As the following chart illustrates, the fiscal program (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and private inventories added roughly 5 percentage points to growth in both the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. In the spring, this contribution already dwindled to half a percentage point, and in the second half of 2010 as well as 2011 both components are likely to shave roughly 1½pp off growth. The swing is, therefore, a considerable six to seven percentage points.”
Here’s hoping for a consumer recovery in 2011….Unfortunately, we probably shouldn’t count on it.
Source: UniCredit
BUFFETT: THERE WILL BE NO DOUBLE DIP
by ilene - September 13th, 2010 5:11 pm
BUFFETT: THERE WILL BE NO DOUBLE DIP
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Warren Buffett is seeing a broad recovery in his many Berkshire businesses. In comments today at the Montana Economic Development Summit Buffett detailed why he is very bullish on America:
“I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.
I’ve seen sentiment turn sour in the last three months or so, generally in the media. I don’t see that in our businesses. I see we’re employing more people than a month ago, two months ago.”
I don’t think Mr. Buffett has ever been too bearish about the long-term outlook of this country (and I entirely agree with that), however it is nice to see his increased confidence based on his underlying companies. Buffett has amassed an impressive and broad group of companies through which he gauges economic
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Picture from Jr. Deputy Accountant
HOUSEHOLD BALANCE SHEETS AND THE RECOVERY
by ilene - September 10th, 2010 4:55 pm
HOUSEHOLD BALANCE SHEETS AND THE RECOVERY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Pedro Amaral of the Cleveland Fed wrote an excellent piece in today’s “Economic Trends” on the state of the recovery and the cause of the slower than normal recovery. His conclusions are exactly in-line with my own: we are in a balance sheet recession that is largely caused by the implosion of the household balance sheet:
“The chart below shows the behavior of households’ (and nonprofit organizations’) net worth in the last six recessions. It is apparent that in the last two the damage to households’ balance sheets was both deeper with and more protracted than in the previous episodes. What was behind the drop in the latest recession? During this period, liabilities were roughly constant, so the drop happened because of declines in asset values caused by the real-estate collapse and the subsequent depreciation in financial assets. In the 2000 recession the drop was due to the stock market collapse. In contrast, in the twin recessions of the early 1980s, net worth never decreased, and in the early 1990s it dropped only about 2 percent.”
“The drops in household net worth help explain the protracted recoveries after the last two recessions. Personal consumption expenditures are the single biggest component of GDP at around 70 percent. If there is to be a solid recovery, consumption needs to increase at a substantially higher rate than the 1.7 percent it has averaged over the last year. But households are not going to start consuming at substantially higher rates until they have fixed their balance sheet problems. This is why the savings rate has been so high lately: Households are working hard at improving their wealth to income ratios at the expense of consumption. In previous recessions, since net worth did not fall by a substantial amount, this was not a problem. As incomes started growing again, consumption followed suit. Right now, an important part of that income growth is being channeled to savings. As the chart above illustrates, net worth is still well below prerecession levels and, barring an increase in asset prices (real-estate prices or stock market prices), the only way to increase it is by saving more and consuming less, further delaying the recovery.”
His conclusion, clearly, is similar to my own. We will not see above trend growth until the consumer balance sheet is…
Labor Day Insanity from Clinton’s Secretary of Labor
by ilene - September 6th, 2010 4:10 pm
Mish disagrees with Robert Reich’s lessons of Labor Day… – Ilene
Labor Day Insanity from Clinton’s Secretary of Labor
Courtesy of Mish
It’s Labor Day. The markets are closed. Those working for government, banks, schools etc have the day off. All totaled, 17.3 million citizens do not have a job today nor a job they can return to on Tuesday. Another 8.9 million will not work as many hours as they would like, this week, next week, or the week after that.
How NOT to End the Great Recession
In a New York Times Op-Ed, Robert B. Reich, a secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, and professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley comes to all the wrong conclusions about where we are, how we got here, and what to do about it. (Robert Reich’s "The Real Lesson of Labor Day" here.)
Please consider How to End the Great Recession
Reich: THIS promises to be the worst Labor Day in the memory of most Americans. Organized labor is down to about 7 percent of the private work force. Members of non-organized labor — most of the rest of us — are unemployed, underemployed or underwater.
Mish Comment: When organized labor is at 0%, both public and private, we will be on our way to prosperity. Organized labor in conjunction with piss poor management bankrupted GM and countless other manufacturing companies. Now, public unions, in cooperation with corrupt politicians have bankrupted countless cities and states.
Reich: The Labor Department reported on Friday that just 67,000 new private-sector jobs were created in August, while at least 125,000 are needed to keep up with the growth of the potential work force.
The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working: near-zero short-term interest rates from the Fed, almost record-low borrowing costs in the bond market, a giant stimulus package and tax credits for small businesses that hire the long-term unemployed have all failed to do enough.
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods
…
THE LABOR MARKET NEVER RECOVERED
by ilene - September 6th, 2010 12:38 am
THE LABOR MARKET NEVER RECOVERED
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Chatter of a “recovery” is back on the table after the markets schizophrenic actions in recent days. It’s amazing how quickly sentiment can change from tremendously bearish to tremendously bullish. Interesting lot us human beings are….Highlighted in this “recovery” talk was the “better than expected” jobs data. Jobless claims were “better than expected”, ISM manufacturing employment data hit news highs (although services, which is a MUCH larger portion of the economy declined) and the non-farm payrolls report capped off the week with a “better than expected” report. But if we take a step back here and look at the big picture you’ll actually notice that there has been ZERO recovery in the labor
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
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