Morning Report: Will the US have a Wile E Coyote moment in 2019?

Vital Statistics:

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2765.5	-19
Eurostoxx index			385	-3.9
Oil (WTI)			65.16	0.1
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.91%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.57%

Stocks are lower this morning on trade fears. Bonds and MBS are up. 

We will get a lot of housing-related data this week, but nothing should be market-moving. We will get housing starts and building permits tomorrow, existing home sales on Wednesday, and house prices on Thursday. Otherwise, should be a relatively quiet week. 

The NAHB Housing Market Index (a sentiment indicator for the homebuilders) fell to 68 last month from 70. Rental markets are softening in some of the more pricy MSAs.

OMB official Kathy Kraninger is supposedly the front-runner to replace Mick Mulvaney as the permanent director of the CFPB. The confirmation process will probably take at least through the end of the year. She is not viewed as any sort of financial regulatory expert, so expect to see a lot of objections from Democrats over the nomination.

Ben Bernanke thinks the US economy will have a Wile E Coyote moment in 2019 or 2020 when the tax cut stimulus wears off. His point is that we are enacting fiscal stimulus at "exactly the wrong time" when the economy is already at full employment. Of course the statement about full employment is debatable. The unemployment numbers indicate we are, but the employment-population ratio does not. The employment-population ratio currently stands at 60.4%, and pre-crisis, we were around 63%. That 2.6% difference works out to be about 8.5 million people. We are getting some modest real wage growth (average hourly earnings are up 2.7% YOY and the core PCE index is growing at 2%) however broad-based wage growth probably isn't going to happen until the EP ratio gets back up around 63%. Yes, there is a demographic element to this with the baby boomers retiring, but that is overplayed. Many people who are retiring in their 60s would rather work. You can see just how bad the Great Recession was. Most of the gains that started in the 60s with women entering the workforce were given back. The "retiring boomers" narrative has a kernel of truth in it, but it isn't driving it. 

The FAANG stocks are now worth more than the entire UK stock market. While people talk about short Treasuries as being the most crowded trade on the Street, it doesn't hold a candle to the FAANGs

Goldman's model now suggests the US economy grew at 4% in the second quarter. Friday's Empire State Manufacturing Survey was the catalyst for the upgrade. 

The government is trying to clarify the Volcker Rule, which prohibits banks from proprietary trading. So far, it seems to be clouding the issue as opposed to clarifying it. Ultimately trades held for less than 60 days are considered proprietary trades although there is a carve-out for hedging and market-making. Given the drop in commissions over the past 20 years, and sub-penny bid ask spreads, the economics of market-making are terrible to begin with, but the regulatory uncertainty probably seals the deal. The next crash is not going to be pretty. 

Morning Report: The push-pull of monetary policy

Vital Statistics:

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2732	3.75
Eurostoxx index			391.38	-1
Oil (WTI)			70.81	0.11
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.98%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.55%

Stocks are higher this morning as trade tensions with China eased somewhat over the weekend. Bonds and MBS are down small.

The Trump Administration is pushing Congress to get a long-term funding deal done by the August recess. 

There won't be much in the way of market-moving data this week - housing starts and retail sales will be the only possibilities. We will have Fed-speak every day however. 

As the yield curve flattens, it is attracting more and more attention. Chris Whalen argues that Fed manipulation of the curve is the driving force behind the flattening. By paying interest on excess reserves, the Fed has pushed up short term rates far further than demand for credit would imply - in fact he argues that if the Fed stopped paying interest on excess reserves, the Fed Funds rate would get cut in half. On the other side of the coin, fears of taking losses on its QE portfolio has caused the Fed to hold down long-term rates. Finally, he argues that the reason for the growth in nonbank lending has been due to unwritten guidance from the government to the big banks: don't go lower than 680 on FICO scores. There is a conflict between macroprudential regulation and monetary policy, which is inhibiting credit growth despite the FOMC's attempts to stimulate it. Whalen argues that credit growth is not high enough to really stimulate a recovery and that is due to hard caps the regulators have imposed on commercial and industrial lending, construction finance, and multifamily lending. I wonder if credit is behind the lack of housing construction despite such high demand. 

As rates rise, we are seeing more and more money flow into passively-managed bond funds. One of the interesting dynamics of passively managed indices is the self-reinforcing mechanism of the investing itself. For example, look at the FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google). Their weight in the S&P 500 is based on their market caps. So, as these companies outperform the S&P 500, their weighting in the index increases, which causes passive investors to buy more in order to maintain their weighting. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here is where it gets strange in bond-land. Companies with the most debt end up dominating the index. So in theory, as a company gets more risky (by issuing more debt), passive investors demand more of their debt. So unlike passive equity investment, which builds on strength, passive bond investing builds on weakness. This means that there should be much more room for index outperformance with actively managed bond funds than with passively managed bond funds. 

Interesting chart from David Stockman:

If the ratio of net worth to income is going to revert to the mean, that means either asset prices are going to crash, or incomes are going to rise. I think the latter is what will occur. 

Morning Report: Incomes and spending rise

Vital Statistics:

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2609	5
Eurostoxx index			370.62	1.36
Oil (WTI)			64.88	-0.37
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.77%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.45%

Stocks are higher this morning on end of month / quarter window dressing. Bonds and MBS are up.

Stocks are set to break a 9 quarter winning streak. The market leaders - the FAANG stocks - have been taking a beating as Facebook gets hit on data issues, and Amazon finds itself in the Administration's doghouse. 

The bond market will close early today, at 2:00 pm EST. Get your locks in early, as secondary marketing types will probably build in a margin cushion to protect themselves over the long weekend. 

Personal Income rose 0.4% in February, while personal spending rose 0.2%. The Personal Consumption Expenditure Index rose 0.2% MOM and 1.8% YOY. The core PCE index (the Fed's preferred measure of inflation) was up 0.2% MOM and 1.6% YOY. The core PCE numbers were a touch higher than the Street was looking for, and everything else was in line. The savings rate rose. Bonds are rallying a bit on the report. 

Initial Jobless Claims fell to 215,000 last week, barely missing the late February number of 210,000. We haven't seen these levels since the early Carly Simon's "Your'e So Vain" topped the charts. When you take into account population growth the number is even more dramatic. 

The FHFA announced that Fannie and Freddie will be issuing a new uniform mortgage backed security beginning in June of 2019. "The transition to the new, common security requires planning, investment, and preparation by a wide variety of market participants," said FHFA Director Melvin L. Watt. "We have now set the specific date that the Enterprises will start issuing the UMBS and I urge the industry to get ready now to ensure smooth, successful implementation." This will help bring Fannie and Freddie pricing more in line with each other. 

Is fintech reaching parts of the market that have not been fully served by traditional banks and lenders? The Philly Fed finds some evidence that it does, particularly in areas where there is high lender concentration (i.e. only a few banks) and areas that don't have much in the way of banks. 

Barclay's Bank agreed to pay $2 billion in civil penalties to settle an investigation concerning RMBS issued during the bubble years. “In general, the borrowers whose loans backed these deals were significantly less credit-worthy than Barclays represented,” the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday. Barclay's had committed to keep the settlement under $2 billion in 2016, but the Obama Justice Department balked. 

A Reuters poll of 75 bond strategists suggests that fears of oversupply in the Treasury market are overblown. They are looking for an increase of 40-50 basis points in the 10 year bond yield in 2018. Considering that we are already up 30 basis points this year, we probably aren't looking at major increases from here - maybe we will find a range of 2.8% to 3% and bounce around. 

Morning Report; Fourth quarter GDP revised upward to 2.9%.

Vital Statistics:

			Last	Change
S&P futures			2623.25	8
Eurostoxx index			366.29	-1.28
Oil (WTI)			64.88	-0.37
10 Year Government Bond Yield				2.77%
30 Year fixed rate mortgage				4.45%

Stocks are lower this morning following yesterday's sell-off. Bonds and MBS are up on the risk-off trade. 

The market leaders (in other words the FAANG stocks) are getting taken to the woodshed on Facebook is down about 20% from mid-February. Is it time to rename the index fAANG?

Mortgage applications rose 4.8% last week as purchases rose 3% and refis rose 7%. Despite the jump in refis we are still at lows not seen for a decade. 

Q4 GDP was revised upward by 40 basis points to 2.9% in the third and final revision. The Street was looking for an upward revision of 20 bps. Consumption was bumped up 20 bps to 4%, while the price index was unchanged at 2.3%. Inventory was increased as well. For 2017, GDP increased 2.3% compared to 1.7% in 2016. 

Pending Home Sales rose 3.1% in February, according to NAR. Despite the gain, it is still over 4% lower than a year ago. That said, February 2017 was exceptionally strong. Expect to see a decrease in March, at least in the Northeast, after a series of storms. 

Home Price appreciation continues as the Case-Shiller Home Price Index increased 6.3% YOY in January. Seattle led the group, increasing almost 13%, followed by San Francisco and Las Vegas. All MSAs reported year-over-year gains. The smallest increases were in the Washington DC and some of the Midwest. 

Increasing real estate prices are pushing up home equity, which grew over $15,000 on average in the fourth quarter, according to CoreLogic.  It was biggest in California, where it jumped $40,000. This is the biggest increase in 4 years, and should bump up consumer spending. Since home equity is considered more permanent than stock market equity, it should affect consumer spending more. 

Consumer confidence slipped a little in March, but is still at elevated levels. The tax cuts are helping to offset some of the losses in the stock market. Generally speaking, consumer confidence indices are inverse S&P indices, so expect them to fall if this sell-off continues. 

As the Spring Selling Season takes shape, we are seeing the biggest home price appreciation at the middle and lower tiers of the market, where there is the biggest supply problem. While mortgage rates are rising, so far they aren't making a dent in housing demand. Surprisingly, Moody's thinks the tax new tax law will dampen home price appreciation about 4% over the next few years, due to the changes in the mortgage interest deduction (which will pretty much only affect the high end in certain states) and increased interest rates due to rising deficits. Perhaps. At any rate, I think the supply / demand imbalance is the biggest driver of home prices, and that will probably get worse before it gets better.