Stocks are flat on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down.
We should have a quiet week ahead with not much in the way of economic data and no Fed-speak. Bonds have been selling off ahead of the FOMC meeting next week. The Fed Funds futures continue to bump up the chance of a December hike, with the odds now over 80%.
While not market moving, we will get some housing data with builder sentiment tomorrow, housing starts on Wednesday, and existing home sales on Thursday.
Chinese stocks are trading at a 4 year low, partially driven by threats of a trade war. Declining stock markets typically put pressure on real estate prices (asset classes generally correlate on the downside), and China has a bubble on its hands. This has the potential to spill over to the US, at least in the higher priced West Coast markets, which should see an exit of Chinese speculative money. Separately, China is considering declining further trade talks.
Trade talks should continue on NAFTA this week. The biggest effect of NAFTA talks will be on housing costs, particularly lumber prices. Base metals have been weak on trade issues, which should dampen the inflation indices a bit.
Hurricane Florence didn't pack the punch that people expected, but the flooding has been probably worse. CoreLogic estimates that the insured flood costs will be between 3 and 5 billion. For servicers, this will suck up some cash, as delinquencies will invariably spike and we will be heading into the holiday forbearance period just as these loans go 90 days down. Nonbank servicers should expect to see a spike in advance activity to go along with the normal seasonal spike.
Manufacturing growth moderated in September, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. New Orders and employment were pretty much the same.
Realtor.com lists the top 10 suburbs in the US. Most are pretty pricey with respect to incomes, with median price / median income ratios ranging from 3.5x to 7.4x. To put that number in perspective, up until the late 90s, the median home price to median income ratio averaged about 3.2 - 3.6. It peaked at 4.8 in 2006. While median home price to median income ratios are an imperfect measure (since they ignore the effects of interest rates on affordability) they are still a relevant measure of how overpriced an area can be.
Retailers are struggling to hire temps heading into the holiday season. Some decided to start hiring this summer in order to beat the expected shortages, while others are offering higher pay and vacation time. Is the just-in-time employment model about to exhibit its weakness?
Goldman is forecasting growth to slow to 2.6% in 2019 and 1.6% in 2020. Many are now calling for a recession in 2020. The catalyst will be higher interest rates and end of the Trump tax cut "sugar high." Perhaps the big investment in inventory build we are currently seeing will be the catalyst. Regardless, we don't seem to have any asset bubbles in the US so we probably aren't going to be looking at any sort of credit crunch. Overseas, there are issues (Canada, Scandinavia, Australia, China).
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