Instructive

We see the market mob is desperate for good news, hence the 180 in sentiment with today’s Sep Starts release.  But Starts and Permits have gone nowhere since the 2013 taper temper tantrum and the resultant spike in rates. Plus wage growth is stagnant and credit tight so they aren’t  going anywhere too quickly, too soon.

Recall the Fed miscommunication of June/19/2013. That was destructive and is the sort of foolishness which will repeat; and, this is why we noted yesterday that one wants to own FI volatility at every opportunity.
 

Downhill

We stated in late July that we may have seen the best from this cycle or “recovery,” US side. 

“May have” then, is almost a certainty now; and, may be “more of a certainly” thanks to a German cave in, and even perhaps thanks to the Ebola scare – yet another gift from that continent.

Not all developments have fit into place for us. We made a big deal in 2013 and H1 of predicting declining business confidence but in fact Q3 looks to be fairly strong for capital spending. And we did not predict the recent buoyant payroll reads (but we did maintain and still do that they really don’t translate much - witness today’s Sep Retail Sales print).

However, larger picture: We have been decelerating. Now the pace of deceleration will pick up.

Annualized GDP, H1 2014 is only a tad better than 1% and that is lower than all of 2013, and 2013 was lower than 2012.

Why the creep? It is because Fed policy is a retardant; super low rates are not a spark.  Velocity (GDP/M) has tanked. We know from the St Louis Fed’s work that velocity of the money base is at 4.4, its lowest ever, meaning “…that every dollar in the …base was spent only 4.4 times…during the last year, down from 17.2 times prior to the recession.” We are not launching a satellite. This means that the explosion in the base driven by Fed policy – QE – has failed to spark a one-for-one proportional increase in GDP.

And just ahead?  The longer the Fed extends its largesse, the longer that particular retardant will remain in place.  But the FOMC will panic and do just that – extend their largesse, and so double down.

Finally, how are we to prosper?  The easiest way is to look for every opportunity to own, not to sell, implied (volatility), either on the Eurodollar or note.  And this is because the more Yellen tries to communicate with the market mob, the better are the odds for market violence.  That is baked in and neither she nor any other single individual can do anything about it. It’s too late.


Robert Craven

Cheap Shot

Headline in today’s Telegraph: “Is Mark Carney lacking ‘consistency’ of just confused?” by Andrew Critchlow.

It is not Mark Carney; it is so-called “forward guidance” that is the problem. Carney could be just about anybody.

This is a cheap shot, Andrew ‘ol boy.  Read our last post. The problem is not the personality, it is the method.


Robert Craven
 

Betrayed!

UK financial types went home last Wednesday feeling betrayed by the BofE’s Mark Carney. More than betrayed – bushwhacked! Some even got pretty darn nasty in the press.

Wait until they arrive at work tomorrow morning!

In June of this year Carney reminded the markets that they – market participants - were not up to date, and had better price in a lift sooner than they thought (thanks dad); sterling exploded. Next, last week Carney highlighted the drop in Q2 earnings (-0.2%) and indicated that no, we can now put things off and can wait to lift until wages grow, likely into next year. Sterling tanked. Then this very day, in an interview with the Sunday Times, Carney indicated that he would not necessarily wait for wages to turn positive before the first lift.  My goodness.

This little incident telegraphs the lunacy of “forward guidance,” the latest fashion in central banking.  It can create nothing substantive, only havoc.

Carney and Yellen are mortals; neither has a better idea of what landscape lies ahead than most of us. It is asking too much, for goodness sake. Under King (who saw early on that forward guidance was nothing if not nonsense), under Volker, and under most of Greenspan’s term, it didn’t matter what their interpretation was; we had rules.

In our business – macro economics – all that counts is that one has a better idea of what the real sector will serve up than the next guy.  That requirement has now been downsized; key now, at least for near-to-intermediate term trading purposes is to understand what one individual - a preacher to the market flock - makes of the situation. Our view on economic reality may well be correct but we have to survive the likely event of being trampled by the congregation.

Of course no one feels sorry for traders or forecasters. But “forward guidance” is corrosive past the harm to these types. Markets that swing violently on the expressed whim or conjecture of an appointed god are markets that discourage a healthy auction, or price exchange.  These are circumstances that encourage many corporate planners and risk takers to simply stay put. 

Fed policy is a retardant in the US.  If Carney does not learn to keep it zipped then BofE policy will come to play the same role in the UK.


Robert Craven

GDP - Major Miss, Our Side

Well, that was not pretty.  We had looked for something just through 2% at the very best, Q2 GDP and a negative H1. Instead, we had Q2 at +4% and Q1 R up to -2.1%.

We’re heading out to the corn patch in a few minutes to salvage what’s left as we find the raccoons have been making off with our crop.


Robert Craven

 

Overreach

Yellen told Congress recently that valuations of high-yield bonds “appear stretched.”  The UK Telegraph: “It is quite unusual for the chair of the Federal Reserve to express a view on market valuations, so it is hardly surprising that investors have sat up and noticed.”

It is “quite unusual” simply because most know when to keep it zipped, when they are out of their arena and away from their mandate. 

The respected columnist George Will recalled how the Economist noted last year that, “…Yellen is now poised to take the tiller of the US economy.” From Will: “Oh? The economy has a tiller? And with it, the Fed chair can steer the US economy? Who knew? A touch of the tiller here, a nimble reversal there - these express the fatal conceit of an institution that considers itself capable of, and responsible for, fine-tuning the nation’s $15.7 trillion economy.”

Many fear the next bubble, a yet-to-be indentified excess-gone-to-the-dogs manufactured by Fed largesse. This is not a likely outcome. Instead, our next crisis will be tied to the combination of Fed activism – fooling with the tiller - and the world market crowd’s demand for a god. Thus, if Yellen judges that high-yield bond valuations are inflated, the market crowd takes that as gospel (which is exactly what happened, this incident, as high-yield investors quailed). 

We noted in past sketches that we will have hell to pay. This Fed chair will continue to overreach; the market crowd will continue to react in the extreme (as do all crowds) and the resulting market violence/distortions will help to put this so-called recovery to rest.


Robert Craven
 

The Best May Be Behind Us

For those who may have missed our blog, past weeks, just a friendly reminder – the US economy didn’t going anywhere, H1. 

We will see advanced Q2 GDP this week, with GDP revisions back to 1999; if Q2 breaks much through 2% it will be a miracle. Amazingly, there are still many out there who believe that weather was the main culprit, Q1 (-2.9%) and that we are in for a major bounce, Q2.  Poor little darlings.

We find from last Friday’s June Durables print that non-defense capital goods shipments, ex-aircraft - the measure used for calculating equipment spending - fell 1% in June, fell 0.1% in May (R from +0.4%) and fell 0.3% in April. Capital goods shipments were supposed to be part of the “big bounce” in Q2 GDP. Nope.

We suffer under a “progressive” administration and now we have a “progressive” as Fed chair. There is no sanity in that.

As a direct result, corporate risk takers are simply not “taking” any. That means non-residential fixed investment will increase about half of what most expect, H1.

We will witness the June Payroll release this Friday.  May headline figures looked to be buoyant, misleading many observers.  Come on now.  About 70% of new jobs created year-to-date have been voluntary part time jobs. These don’t carry much horsepower for goodness sake.

Our problem is that for the time being at least, we cannot translate macro insight to the bottom line. This is because in the fixed income markets, central banks are now seen as governors (of the lawn mower variety).

The distortions triggered by an activist Fed chair will continue to act as a retardant.  We may have seen the best from this recovery.


Robert Craven

Eye on the Ball

The recent NFP print appeared to contradict our long-held view on US growth. That is, many, perhaps most observers believe jobs lead GDP; these same observers, most of whom had their predictions flattened by the Q1 GDP print of -2.9%, were cheered by recent jobs figures and claimant counts.  These folk predict a major acceleration in growth (which would save their necks).  We did and still do predict little to nothing by the way of growth.

Where in the world do they get this stuff?  Jobs have never been a leader, at least not during our time in the arena.  We never use charts but if the reader insists, take the correlation of NFP to GDP, past 20 years or so and report back.  Jobs may be a coincident indicator, at best, which is why we could never explain the near-orgasmic response tied to buoyant payroll reads.

And jobs and claims are especially poor indicators now given the change in payroll practices.  Employers hire temps more than ever.  They do it to manage production; they don’t want to get hung out to dry.  Now if a temp goes back to the agency, it is not a layoff; it does not raise unemployment insurance – they can’t collect it.  So of course this makes the weekly claims reads look rosier than reality would justify.

But this is not the only reason to discount jobs figures. Another is that productivity (aggregate hours / output) has tanked. That is, it takes a heck of a lot more workers now to produce a given quantity of goods than it did, Q4 ’13; about 1,500,000 more by some estimates. Productivity is down maybe 5%, Q1, because – you guessed it – the fall in business investment. It was incessant meddling by the Fed and administration that led to this; risk takers don’t trust either one. They fear the risk that high corporate taxes will go higher, the risk that the bloat in regulations will bloat further, and finally, they fear the results of what they understand to be the fatal conceit of a Fed chair who thinks she is capable of fine-tuning the US economy.


Robert Craven

HR 5018

Many of us celebrate the first step to a return to sanity at the Fed – the introduction of the Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (HR 5018). 

We have a Rule of Law in this country - its origin to be traced to the Scottish enlightenment, especially the work of founder James Wilson. This Rule of Law is sacrosanct. We have also had from time to time a Rule of Monetary Policy Making in this country; however, this rule has been repeatedly ravished, violated. HR 5018 seeks to prevent such a repeat outrage.

All but the willfully blind now acknowledge that more predictable rules-based policy leads to better economic performance. See the recent works of Belongia, Ireland, Carlozzi, Taylor and so many others.  John Taylor: “In one of his last research papers Milton Friedman argues that the Taylor rule ….worked well because it was a way to keep the growth rate of the money supply constant, another way to make the connection between money growth rules and interest rate rules.”

Naturally all do not agree because planners and activists - the self-anointed among us - have yet to be cleansed from the system.  Fed chair Yellen is one of the anointed. That is why this week she went on record opposing HR 5018.

Instead, we expect the hearings on HR 5018 to expose the dangers of relying on Friedman’s “accidents of personality” and to ignite at least the pilot light, if not the main burners on the return voyage to sanity in central banking.


Robert Craven

For Now

We return to the wisdom of Clemenceau: money is much too serious a matter to be left to the central bankers; meaning of course - the act of putting all at risk by relying on what Milton Friedman called “accidents of personality.”

What John Taylor said so well, most of us who do not live under a rock understand to be true: “The Fed has effectively replaced the entire interbank money market and large segments of other markets with itself – i.e., the Fed determines the interest rate by declaring what it will pay on bank deposits at the Fed without regard for the supply and demand for money.  By replacing large decentralized markets with centralized control by a few…officials, the Fed is distorting incentives and interfering with price discovery with unintended consequences throughout the economy.”  Amen.

In this blog we have long called for a return to the single goal of price stability (the dual mandate is magnificently redundant) and a requirement that the Fed disclose their rule or strategy for meeting that goal, with regular checkups in front of Congress.  Others have provided perhaps even better anchors: see Woodhill from Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/05/27/we-need-a-boring-monetary-policy/.

And close to home, Stanford’s Hoover Institution recently hosted a conference to discuss recommendations from over a dozen observers for a change to rule-based policy, and legislation that may well be needed to bring these reforms about.

But until that time, we’re stuck with this bunch of planners and their helter-skelter ways.

So, there will be no recovery, at least not of the variety most understand the word to mean.  By the simple act of sitting on their hands – our directive of two years ago (and one totally ignored) – the Fed and administration could have claimed a victory of sorts; now they are both guilty as co-conspirators in the tanking of the mightiest economy on the face of the earth and both, if the world was at all a fair place, would now be taking their meals through a slot (along with Paulson, BofA, Citi types and others of that ilk). That little that the US economy has accomplished is in spite of this bunch.


Robert Craven
 

US - Review, and Just Ahead

Key is to be prepared for the economic topography just ahead. Clients (and later, readers) understood that the nasty weather, Q1, provided camouflage, cover for a genuine wilt. Yesterday’s Q1 GDP revision (-2.9%) was then no surprise; we did not have the exact print naturally, but the risk of release.  Also yesterday through the Durables print, we saw that business investment has been flat, first two months of Q2.  From January readers have known that corporate risk takers would quail, and why.

We’re traveling, but frankly couldn’t help but crow a bit, hence this piece. Humility is not a handicap around this shop (but then flip side is that we also owe up immediately to what might turn out to be flaws in judgment).

Observers pretty much ignored the US Q1 tanking – ancient history. Well, sometimes such a mantra can work.  Not this time. Consumption was up 1% in Q1. Consumption will be lucky to break 1% in Q2, our view. No way Q2 GDP will break 2%.

The general flaw, the default in judging US activity for H1 remains the same as that we established for Q1 – any major surprises to be to the side of weakness, not vigor; or, to put that in a relative light – exactly the opposite of the anchor that has served so well regarding UK activity. Or to put it even another way:  everything about conventional wisdom right now, regarding the US, is ass-backwards.

We are off on a hike, down here in lovely Alabama, and no doubt we will encounter gators, water moccasin and snapping turtles along the way (and forgot rattlesnakes).


Robert Craven

 

Do Your Own Homework

The IMF and Lagarde - recently pilloried for a major miss on the UK.  That’s from the cheap seats.  Economists are not trained to forecast, so our advice is to leave her and the IMF alone; there is no room for complaints.

In the case of the UK, readers know very well what she and 99% of the rest left out – attitude.  We praised an “enlightened administration” a year back; this fetched a rash of cancellations from our leaf-leaning readers, and with some nasty emails to boot.

Well, it’s just too darn bad for this bunch - the willfully blind. 

One of the major reasons almost all missed UK vigor, and we did not – predicting the same repeatedly – is that they overlooked the obvious:  That would be expanding confidence, consumer and risk-taker alike.  From Lagarde: “We got it wrong. Clearly the confidence building that has resulted from the economic policies adopted by the government has surprised many of us.”  (The phrase “many of us” is generally added to punctuate the point that the forecaster had company, not the only fool on the block. That’s ok. Forgive this bunch.)

If there’s a lesson from this experience - one for us that represented a major highlight in our career - it is this: do your own homework.


Robert Craven
 

Denial and the UK

We are about to depart for John Muir’s magnificent “Range of Light,” yet before the glistening peaks and giant Sequoia let’s utilize this post to punctuate one of the more remarkable phenomena we have ever observed in this arena - that would be none other than the gaping disconnect, the chasm between observation and economic reality as linked to the UK.

Those who are interested in capturing near to intermediate-term FI or FX price change understand that at least two elements are needed: knowledge of that which at any moment is priced in, and, knowledge of that economic reality just ahead - the economic release stream.  But we are mortals; rarely can we fetch up either, let alone both, without a miss. So that won’t do.

However, if we can harness or capture or isolate that which we at this shop call “the flaw” common to or impacting a given point of observation, that flaw imbedded in a given consensus then we have just established a major leg up over the majority of other observers / traders. We are working exactly backwards to conventional strategy making. We don’t have to be right on the release as we have the odds of direction of miss instead.

At least for us the key is the combination of right-brained thinking and the understanding of crowd dynamics; this provides the edge.

Readers can free themselves from minutia, from the in-house forecast for example and other leavings of the left side of the brain; they can divorce from the information overload that serves only to obscure reality just ahead.  Those that persist in the old way are relying on the wrong side of the brain for deliverance.

Now, let us review the recent and truly fascinating experience with the UK.

Recall that not too long ago observers figured the UK economy had seen its last sunrise; double-dippers were everywhere. A simple call to a shipper, a service outfit, a manufacturer or a CFO – our practice – did not support this view; nevertheless, this consensus continued to snowball. 

Always with crowds, errors are exaggerated and views taken to the extreme, lynch mob or analytical mob. Next, there is inbreeding to crowds; forecasters eat, dress, talk and recreate together. There is also pressure within the group to go along, not to be a standout. This all creates vulnerability; indeed, analysts H2 ’12, all of 2013, and Q1 ‘14 were very vulnerable, vulnerable because they surrendered their own instinct and common sense for that of crowd think and impulse. They were flattened as a result. Just what triggered this particular stampede, this wildebeest-rush-through-croc-invested-waters, even we’re not sure; but it happened and most certainly it will happen again. And when it happens, it represents the nearest thing to a pot of gold most traders will ever see; but the “seeing” is reserved for, is gifted only to those who can balance and treat intuition as an equal partner to logic.

And so it was that those who had been so thoroughly and so consistently wrong about the UK early on, still refused to change direction even though signs all along the trail over which they rushed read “Danger, Danger.” 

And even after being steam rolled they could still not abandon group think, still willing members of the crowd even though if they were thinking in isolation, as individuals, they might have acted differently.

We presented on 10/25/2012 a sketch entitled Navigating the UK, and then regular updates to present - just where to look, which sectors would blow through estimates and why; and early on, with translation to the term structure.  It all worked very well.

But apparently most did not read our blog.  Thus, recall that following Osborne’s budget a typical comment from a street economist was that, well, ok, we missed the growth alright but it’s “the wrong kind of growth.”  (Well, sure, that makes it ok then that you couldn’t forecast your way out of a wet paper bag!) What about business investment being up 8.5% Y/Y Q4, ‘13?  We don’t trust that figure was the answer from the crowd. And by political instinct the crowd could never bring itself to give credit to the administration, even when it was found that manufacturers are now shifting manufacturing back to the UK because of the more business-friendly environment, one spawned by the administration.

The wrong kind of growth huh? A recent Deloitte survey found that 81% of CFO’s plan to add to staff and that 80% of canvassed CFO’s plan to increase capital expenditures.

The wrong kind of growth, when the recent BCC survey showed service firms had the fastest growth in exports on record, Q1?  Think not.

And the consumer?  The crowd, the willfully blind, refused to acknowledge the obvious. This activity was especially strong in 2/14 despite awful weather.  How about money? From the recent REC data, the hike in average salary of permanent staff is up by the most since 7/07 for goodness sake. Staff demand is through the roof. Wages are higher in real terms. We find from the CIPD that hiring plans are the best since ’07.

These “surprising” numbers are not so much the bounty for us as is the pattern. We can’t describe exactly how we detect the launching of a group rush; we know we are no smarter than anyone else out there.  But we do know it is the right hemisphere of the brain that provides the lift, the leg up. 

Try it; certainly in your own way, but try it.   And then report back; even call us (415-342-3886).


Robert Craven

 

Hell To Pay

Fixed income prices have erupted and folks wonder why. Those with a moment to spare can consult past posts for the answer. We recommend that exercise. Otherwise, we will distill just below.

Nothing is right with the US economy; old rules have been violated and clearing mechanisms discarded.

It all began when Paulson and Bernanke sold a bill of goods to Congress, which in turn sold the same bill of goods to its constituents. Normal working folk simply did not and cannot believe that incest exists on such a massive scale; such behavior is not tolerated on the farm and so they expect the same of financial types – big mistake. 

So folk who should at this moment still be under house arrest, got away with it. And because the US economy was not allowed to clear itself of toxins, it is no more than the walking dead, ready to convert Street types and innocent bystanders alike, into crow bait.

Key for Q1 – the weather was simply camouflage.

Faith has been placed in planners and there will be hell to pay as a result.


Robert Craven
 

Medicine Show?

We predicted Apr/6 than any surprises for the US would be to the side of weakness, and that traders should prepare for that reality.  The headline Payroll print of May/2 (+288M) seemed to make us out to be just another medicine show.

Granted, we are having a tougher time than usual understanding the US economic landscape just ahead.  Our exercise with the UK has been much easier, past 12 months, and certainly much more satisfying.

Our theme all along for the US has been that a statist administration and an activist Fed are counter-productive, counter-productive because both cause corporate risk takers to quail, if not cower.

Recall the latest in the Fed mandate craze - preserve financial stability. This is absurd when sculpted as a directive to the Fed - giving the keys to the inmates. The Fed is the very agent of financial instability because it has eviscerated normal market-clearing mechanisms. The Fed is the architect of what now amounts to a house of cards.

Reflect then on our prediction or theme and then reflect on Q1 activity as released Apr/30. Total fixed investment fell 2.8%, the biggest drop since Q4 ’09. We don’t think this was the weather; it was attitude. Spending on equipment fell 5.5% and residential investment, down 5.8%. That’s not the weather either. Where was there vigor? Well, the stand out was spending on health care, climbing by $43.3 bln to a $1.85 trl annualized pace, the most since records began 65 years ago. Recall that in a recent sketch we highlighted this very trend - thank you Obama.

And now back to the Apr Payroll print.  There was real improvement here to be sure. We saw that goods-producing industries added 53M and we saw manufacturing added 12M.

OK.  But it is also true that both average hours and average earnings were flat. Unemployment was reported at 6.3% but that was because the labor participation rate fell back to 62.8%, a low last seen in 1978.


We’re not in the snake oil business at this shop.


Robert Craven

FOMC Minutes - Theater of the Absurd

Today’s minutes:  It is bad enough to give up policy deliberations when as a policy maker, you follow some rule.  It is quite another to give up policy deliberations when you are making things up as you go along – the Yellen Fed.

Over the many years we have followed the Fed never once have we ever witnessed such a lapse in judgment; it was almost childish this mish mash called “minutes.”

We’ve disagreed, even to the point for example of triggering change at the Greenspan Fed (with the help of a few others).  But we have never ever looked at any of the membership, no matter what their point of view, as clowns.

This is painful to see and it represents the acceleration of a process - the shredding of the US central bank’s authority and dignity.


Robert Craven

 

Lesson Never Learned

Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz demonstrated beyond a doubt, in A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, that what was indeed a difficult situation in 1930, 31 was converted into an economic disaster by planners at the Fed.  “Mistakes…cannot be avoided in a system which disperses responsibility yet gives a few men great power, and which thereby makes important policy actions highly dependent on accidents of personality,” Friedman concluded. (Bernanke admitted in front on Congress – “We did it.”)

Yet here we go again.

In the 60’s and 70’s Friedman felt that targeting the money stock was as good as any known tool at that time, to take the discretion away from Fed planners because to paraphrase Clemenceau – money is much too serious a matter to be left to the Central Bankers.

As it turned out, the aggregates were not the best target but then Friedman himself noted that we would improve as we moved along. “I do not regard my particular proposal as a be-all end-all of monetary management..,” he wrote in Capitalism and Freedom.  Our personal preference is a simple price target but whatever it may be We Need One Now.

Yellen and others like her are a threat to all of us.  We need a rule; we don’t need their opinion. 

Friedman: “Such a rule seems to me the only feasible device currently available for converting monetary policy into a pillar of a free society rather than a threat to its foundations.”


Robert Craven

UK - Full Speed Ahead

A Deloitte survey of CFO’s released today indicated that the risk appetite among UK financial types, Q1, 2014 was the highest since 2007 (survey period, 3/6 – 24).  Some 81% expect businesses to add staff, 80% predict higher capital expenditures and 95% expect more M & A.

Surprise? Nope. Not to our clients who had the UK “miracle” in hand when most looked for a double-dip.

In the UK we have an enlightened administration and a central bank which, although it has strayed in recent months, is still far more anchored than its counterpart in the US.

If these CFO types do moderate their plans it will not be due to domestic concerns but a perceived slowing in the US and resultant contagion from that event.


Robert Craven

US Economy Just Ahead

There will be disappointment just ahead.

We noted in an earlier post (Mar/5) that the weather provided camouflage.  Think about it – the awful weather was not a secret; naturally it provided a brake and so the weather was factored into economists’ predictions. You just slot it in. Easy. Still, the consensus missed weakness by a long shot during this period. “Must be the weather,” was the typical response. No, this was not the weather.  This was simply a miss of a genuine economic wilt, Dec, Jan, February, divorced from the weather. Hint: Private-service employment was weaker in each of the last 4 months than it was in the 9 months before that, yet these jobs are less impacted by bad weather than goods-producing jobs (goods-producing jobs added 25M in March, down from Feb).

Releases just ahead will conform to our view, and why not? The administration continues to provide hindrances to any real take off: Obamacare (see Apr/2 post), American corporate 35% marginal tax rate, higher minimum wage, EPA regulations; these and many more scare the pants off employers and risk takers alike.

Finally, we have a Fed which, after the high it received from its discretionary activity in ‘08 (some of which was needed) has now become thoroughly addicted to such behavior, refusing offers of rehab, let alone showing the courage to go cold turkey.


Robert Craven
 

What Fun

Today’s world market crowd reaction to the Mar NFP print is telling.  Under normal conditions, since observers know Fed policy up front (because it is rule-based) they can set up accordingly given real sector results. Just as there is a rule of law in this country governing personal conduct, there was, until it was just recently surrendered, a rule of law governing US monetary policy. But now observers must first guess the reaction of a handful of central planners to a key release and next guess just which sectors these planners will decide to favor this time.  Too much.

Marx, Engels and Bakunin would be greatly cheered.

Robert Craven

Regulatory Impact in Real Time

We often refer to the administration’s regulatory meddling as a retardant, a primary reason we linger. One need only glance at Obamacare and its impact to understand this point.

Since Sep/2013 health care service spending has increased on the order of 0.7% monthly (source – BEA) and most of the increase is due to rising out-of-pocket medical spending and higher premiums. A conservative estimate is that Obamacare has triggered a $250bl shift in household budgets so that medical services as a percent of consumer spending are now at a 24 year high, or 24.3%.  Last year that stood at 23.5%, a 4 year low.

This is likely the reason real consumption in Q1 is moving along at a meager 1.5% annual growth rate, the weakest in years.  From our friends at FTN Financial we see that some 80% of the increase in spending is going to health and insurance; consumption of the rest is growing by only 0.3%.

Retailers are paying the price for Obamacare. This is one reason that in past sketches we have debunked the weather excuse from the get go.


Robert Craven

Lost

Members of the FOMC are mortals, just like most of the rest of us (sorry Alan). No one says the job is an easy one. We don’t judge them on that. But members like it or not and for better or worse are anointed by the world markets; this is reality. Thus anointed, they should act appropriately.  That means - don’t give away too much of the decision-making process. When you do that as a central banker you learn the old rule all over again, and you learn it the hard way – familiarity breeds contempt. Volker knew this, Greenspan perhaps, but the rest – not a chance.

Yellen has so far proven to be everything we felt she would be – a failure. In a few short weeks she has taken the Fed out into the desert and she/it will wander there, lost, for perhaps years to come. 

The job at the FOMC is tough, yes, but then to undertake new endeavors for which one is thoroughly untrained is simply foolhardy. When academics attempt to reason with the market crowd, they are 100% asking for trouble. They never get it right.  And then when after their first stumble they try again and over-correct, they make a mess.

Ah, so many lessons unlearned by these elites, it boggles the mind.

I could go back home tomorrow to the family ranch/homestead in the California Central Valley, and throw a dart and hit a neighboring rancher, any rancher, then take that rancher and sit him down at the Fed and that rancher would put us on a trajectory to economic health because that rancher, like most of his kind, knows when to hold still and when to shut up.

Yellen tried to communicate with the crowd; she got a response she did not expect and so yesterday she tried to set the record straight. After scaring the pants off the herd on her first attempt, Ms. Yellen yesterday promised to keep rates low for a long time. She even trotted out individual stories in good ‘ol Queen for a Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YW-uv3Ibm8  fashion. There was one Jermaine Brownlee, part time plumber now full time body lotion person. There was a Doreen Poole and finally a Vicki Lira, a printing plant worker who lost her job when the plant was closed (What? A plant closed?).

None of these experiences were unique to a free society where things do change, nor were they at all instructive.  Two of the stories however were entertaining as it turns out Brownlee was convicted recently of heroin possession and Poole was convicted of felony theft.  I see.  Maybe that’s why employers are not all over them.

First, Yellen makes the mistake of trying to embrace and appease the market crowd. Then to prove to all non-believers that she has done her homework, she throws up criminals as examples of victims of the US economic machine. 

We are lost.


Robert Craven

Sad

Yellen today: “This extraordinary commitment is still needed and will be for some time. The scars from the great recession remain…reaching our goals will take time.”

No Ms. Yellen, your organization’s “extraordinary commitment” is not needed and “reaching our goals” will not “take time” if we can simply get you and Obama out of the way.  It is you and it is Obama’s social democracy that provide the retardants.

Robert Craven

UK Consumer Attitude

When last addressing the UK on Feb/26 we wrote that, “Finally and key remains the consumer. It is well known that we have a record number of people in work, and of course we have the spark to consumption provided by the housing bonanza, and we have a shopper who will resort to increased leverage to linger in the mall.  These things are known and priced in.  It is ongoing attitude which is missing, most models.” 

Sure enough, today’s Feb Retail Sales print blew expectations away (+1.8%, vs +0.3%, consensus). And why?  Because UK analysts have missed consumer attitude; they still cannot capture consumer attitude in their models. But then how could they when they are speeding along at 90 with their eyes in the mirror?

Want to capture the headline on consumer activity? Go ahead; be polite and read the in-house economist’s report if you must but then as soon as you have a moment, head out to the mall.  Ask a question or two. It works wonders.


Robert Craven

 

Illusion

Headline this am: “US Stocks Gain on Durables Report.”  Ah, the innocent little darlings. 

See our last sketch for a quickie on why we are going nowhere.

Desperate, children at the helm lock onto a Durables headline as if it were a life preserver.  In fact, today’s Feb Durables print was weak because non-defense capital goods orders, ex aircraft, were down again, following a downward revision for January. 

Come on now. Business equipment investment is going nowhere and we know why – a statist administration and an interventionist Fed.

Businesses are flush you say? Right, after their 2013 borrowing binge but guess where most of that went – stock buybacks.  We haven’t talked to one business leader who intends to increase equipment spending, or payroll much either, for that matter.  These guys are not stupid for goodness sake.


Robert Craven
 

That Was Easy

In recent lectures and meetings with clients we have highlighted the steps required to fire the US economy. These meetings take about 10 minutes; then we’re all off for a good IPA.

Background:  We have an over-reaching administration and a complicit Fed. Most members of the FOMC are willing to keep quiet and go along with the Chair, ignoring the incest close at hand. Family reunions in the Deep South run a distant second.

For years, for us, the FI auction market offered up adventure and fair play, with victories and mishaps along the way; it was a rough game but in an arena where everybody knew the rules. There were, to borrow from TR, “great devotions and great enthusiasms.”

Now we find this arena to be a sordid place; the game is rigged by crony capitalists turned planners who pick the winners.

The Fed and the administration are co-conspirators. Their foray at the gaming table suits both very well, but not most Americans.

The key for a return to a vibrant American economy is for the Fed to regain its credibility by targeting 2% inflation. That was easy.

The “dual mandate” is a redundancy; it’s stupid.  Stop the QE bit, stop the kumbaya bit with the investment crowd, reduce interest on reserves to 0% (in two steps), adopt a reasonable FF’s target and then stand back. When we see 2% inflation (headline PCE), fine; lift FF’s.

Things don’t have to be so terribly complex; this – complexity – is indeed the final refuge for the scoundrel, or in this case, for the conjoined heads of Fed and administration.

Our advice to Obama is to stop the incessant meddling, a signature of his party; our advice to FOMC members is to stop the assault on seniors before you’re all put under house arrest, or worse.

Let’s put this reeking chapter behind us.


Robert Craven

 

Settled, Isn't It?

Come on now, we all know what happened: Paulson and Bernanke sold Congress a bill of goods; Congress took it all in and sold it to the masses – the clowns who screwed up must be bailed, for the sake of all of us.  If not, an apocalypse was sure to follow.  What was sure to follow was in fact a normal cleansing process and a grounded economy.

And now we have a Fed which cannot get out of its own way - by refusing to sit on its hands when we told it to (wasting all that air fare!) - and an overreaching administration which by instinct puts government ahead of everything else. Isn’t that about it folks? Doesn’t that just about explain this zombie economy of ours?  We think so. If you need more, see Garrett and Rhine’s piece in the Jan/Feb/2011 St Louis Fed Review, “Economic Freedom and Employment Growth in the US.”  Just in case that publication cannot be found on your coffee table, witness today’s NFIB Feb small business optimism index, which tanked – hiring plans and economic outlook both in the cellar. The cascade of regulations and higher taxes that are the signature of the left explains this result.

Our colleagues tell us, “Now don’t get into politics.” Of course we’ll “get into politics.”  We’ll get into anything that plays the key role of economic retardant - in this case, planners knowing what’s best for the rest of us.

There will be no acceleration, no escape velocity; that is, not until there is another great big crisis. Yellen as Fed chair is a crisis but not the right kind. Obama-at-the-helm is a crisis (unless E-Z style social democracies are your thing, or more exactly, if France is your thing) but Obama doesn’t even register on most radar screens any longer.  We need something grander to expose this house of cards; that should be just around the corner.


Robert Craven

The Weather - A Secret?

We all know that some key economic reads for January and February have come in on the side of weakness. This surprise has been attributed to weather. Some prints for this time frame, such as new home sales and some manufacturing reads did ok but Jan Retail Sales, Jan NFP (hiring & wage gains) and Feb services were in the tank. But what is important for our purposes is that these reads were far below expectations, below street consensus.

If one is interested in capturing price change it is not the absolute result that counts; we don’t spend a lot to time worrying about that; it is only the result vs consensus view.  Duh. It is easier to isolate the flaw common to street estimates than it is to work in reverse. We’d rather spend that time in the garden.

So, were recent weather patterns a secret to the analytical crowd? Doubt it. Let’s just go way out on a limb and venture that unless these guys live under a rock, then the impact of ice and snow was woven into their estimates - they’re not anxious to miss on purpose. But still there was a significant miss for jobs and spending.

This means that relative weakness in the US economy – something analysts have yet to pick up - has been camouflaged by the weather. And this reality, this far along in the “recovery” is perfectly consistent with our long-held view that the US will under-perform this cycle; it will under-perform vs that which is at this moment priced in.


Robert Craven

Let’s take a look at the UK.

An understanding of crowd behavior is a handy tool in delivering a leg up; this applies equally well in handling the analytical horde as the investment crowd. The following illustrates our point, and illustrates just why our clients had an advantage in understanding real-sector change in the UK, 2013 and Q1 2014.  We recommend the application of this technique.

From our Sep/2/2013 sketch: “In the Spring we isolated a flaw common to most UK economic models…”; well, common to most observers actually, “…almost all of whom were driving at 90, gazing in the rear view mirror; a perfect case of group-think in economics..” – holding hands, shouting out together in the dark. “Once we had that in hand we in effect had the financial headlines in hand.  And that is exactly how things worked out.”  

Naturally it was not a gangbusters UK economy; that was beside the point.

We predicted more of the same into 2014.  With a few exceptions, this too worked.  Thus the “triple dip” recession that so many economists had predicted Q1 ‘13 as a near certainty just ahead, was a no-show (if these guys were plumbers, they’d be out of a job). The Bank of England, the OECD and the IMF – all were cutting their forecasts as we grew more optimistic.

It was not all economics.  It was also our admiration for Osborne and his policies – why the economy would improve without an ease in the fiscal squeeze. We received hate mail when we called the administration’s economic policies “enlightened.” But we were right – thank you George.

Yet this satisfactory exercise did not come without disappointment. And that was the matter of translation. One would think that if one has the direction of miss, most key releases, one could do well in the matter of translation, intra or inter market. However, because FI price change in the UK and the US is now rigged, that part did not go as well.  In that sense we were ambushed by planners.

Now, after months of the economy “outperforming,” most analysts have caught on, or think they have.


What’s next?


Bank of England policy, H1, will be either a wash or a retardant; in other words, policy will get in the way.  Next, recent experience with “forward guidance” shows us exactly why King always thought the idea to be a foolish one. Carney will continue to switch targets and tools.

Administration policy (in direct contrast to its US counterpart) will continue to favor growth. This is not appreciated by some, especially the media and faculty-lounge types, and for that matter, perhaps over half of street economists who are still dusting off from their last encounter with reality.

Real sector activity will continue to outperform given consensus, but of course in semi-erratic fashion - not in a straight line. The major surprises are over for now; yet those along the way will be to the side of more, not less, or at least most of them will. Certainly services and manufacturing prints Q2 will tend to broach consensus. 

Finally and key remains the UK consumer. It is well known that now we have a record number of people in work, and of course we have the spark to consumption provided by the housing bonanza, and we have a shopper who will resort to increased leverage to linger in the mall. These things are known and priced in. It is ongoing attitude which is missing, most models.


Robert Craven

 

A Junkie

The Fed is a junkie. Like most junkies, this one tells us he is our friend, that he harbors only good intent and that he’s got the stuff to make us happy. This junkie explains his behavior through the exercise of “forward guidance.”

The Fed has made addicts out of banks, out of equity investors and of course, the US government-as-a-borrower; and while we’re at it, it’s made addicts out of S Africa, Brazil, India and other such credits.

This combination of dealer and addict can come to no good.

Background: The Founders understood the rule of law and how that concept should be imprinted over their Grand Document so that American citizens would freely function and prosper, without imperiling the rights of others. Everybody knows the rules. It worked. Now the world’s most powerful and most influential sovereign has ditched that same concept when applied to money and banking. No one knows what to expect next from government and Fed planners. There are no rules.

So the banks simply sit on their hands.  Why not? As addicts they rake in a nice spread playing couch potatoes, doing nothing because 0.25% on their excess reserves seems just dandy.

Others take the next step and reject caution entirely. That means buying stock for your 95 yr old grandmother when you know darn well, or should, that she has no business in anything but TBills.  But a 0.15% return does not excite, so discard discipline and look to the junkie.

And job creators? There has been no return to normal. My daughter’s family just moved to the South, so for fun we took a look at that market. The Atlanta Fed tells us that small-business job creation in its district is still 5% - 7% off the pre-recession level. Why? Uncertainty. Firms in that region reported there is more uncertainty now than when last canvassed in April, 2013.  As a result, their 1) hiring plans and 2) ability to make business decisions are both restricted.  And not just Fed-bred uncertainty we might add, but that spawned by our administration.

Now what for strategy?

In the broadest sense, look for “surprising” US weakness over the intermediate term, not surprising vigor. This will be within the US, and it will be vs other credits such as the UK and Germany.  We may have a bit of both, but “weakness” will trump.

This is a crude guide to be sure, but still useful. And why will this be so? Because most world observers, the majority of analysts still expect a conventional US recovery; they look for an acceleration ignoring those key factors that have so far prevented it.  “We’ll hit escape velocity pretty quickly now,” notes one analyst.  No we won’t. We could, but we won’t. The issue of substance abuse encouraged by the Fed is one reason why.

Those most handicapped in understanding US economic reality, whether on Wall Street or the corridors of Washington, are those who lack scholarship; those who ignore lessons of history and economics; those suffering of Hayek’s “fatal conceit” – the conviction that planners, the anointed, are capable of driving the US economic machine.  They are driving the machine alright, but it will be over a cliff.


Robert Craven