War, Pay Phones, Small Business and Big Banks
Financial Review
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:15 — 6.1MB)
DOW + 154 = 17,210
SPX + 15 = 1998
NAS + 46 = 4555
10 YR YLD + .03 = 2.57%
OIL + 1.18 = 92.80
GOLD – 6.30 = 1217.60
SILV – .11 = 17.78
President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly today. He condemned ISIS, and said there was no reasoning and no negotiation with their brand of evil. He said the US “will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death”; that coalition is now up to 40 countries. He urged Muslims to reject the ideology of ISIS and al-Qaeda. He also announced a US warplanes hit ISIS vehicles and arms dumps in new air strikes in Iraq and Syria. ISIS continues to advance in Syria and aid agencies report some 130,000 Kurdish refugees have crossed into Turkey in the past few days. An Algerian jihadist group linked to ISIS has released a video which it says shows militants beheading a French tourist.
The president’s speech also criticized Russia for the recent invasion of Ukraine. Today, NATO reports Russia has withdrawn a sizable number of its troops from eastern Ukraine, although some remain. Russian backed rebels in the region said they had begun pulling back their heavy artillery after Ukrainian troops did the same. For now, the cease fire appears to be holding.
The stock market recovered after three days of losses; for the Dow Industrials it was two days of triple digit declines. Not much in the way of economic news today. New home sales were up 18% in August. In a separate report, the Mortgage Bankers Association said applications for loans to purchase homes fell last week as mortgage rates crept up. New loan applications are well off peaks seen early last year. Yesterday, the NAR reported existing home sales had flat lined, with both “cash sales” and “sales to investors” dropping, or rather plunging since late 2013. Every month since late last year, existing home sales have been below their year-ago levels. Bad news for flippers. Looking at the bigger picture it might give some hints to family formation, or lack thereof. For economists, it might serve as a lesson that rising home prices are a symptom of economic strength, not a cause; and you can’t sustain rising home prices without rising wages.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi renewed a pledge to keep monetary policy loose for an extended period. The euro dropped below $1.28. The dollar has now posted gains for 10 straight weeks, pushing the dollar index above 85 for the first time since July 2010. A stronger dollar likely means lower prices on basic commodities; it also serves as stimulus for the Eurozone and Japan, making their exports cheaper; and a strong dollar might even fuel another round of M&A activity; also, this might be a great time to take a European vacation.
You’ve heard the stories of data breaches at Target, and then the big one at Home Depot, potentially affecting some 56 million customers; now add Jimmy John’s to the list; 216 stores of the restaurant chain were involved in a security breach on July 30. There has to be a more secure way to buy a sandwich. The security breach at Home Depot is now resulting in fraudulent transactions that may be draining cash from some customer bank accounts as criminals use stolen card information to buy prepaid cards, electronics, groceries, or whatever. Financial institutions are also stepping up efforts to block the transactions by rejecting them if they appear unusual. Best advice is to keep a close eye on your own accounts.
Some people think the next big thing is Apple Pay; it doesn’t store credit card data and Apple fingerprint reading technology could provide an extra layer of security, but it’s a long way from being ubiquitous. It is estimated Apple could end up taking in around $90 million in transaction fees from Apple Pay next year, climbing to more than $300 million by 2016. That should make payments absolutely, super-duper safe and secure.
Meanwhile, Apple announced it is pulling its latest update of the new iOS 8 operating system, which they sent out to fix the glitches in its new HealthKit app. The problem with the update is that people who installed it lost the fingerprinting ID capability and phone calls kept getting dropped. Other than that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln?
Remember Blackberry. Once upon a time Blackberry was the cool mobile phone, and then Apple became the cool mobile phone and Blackberry was so square. Well, they’ve embraced that. Blackberry introduced a new phone today, it’s called the Passport, and the screen is square, not rectangular, so it won’t fit in any pocket.
Wal-Mart thinks the next big thing is a Wal-Mart checking account; they will partner with Green Dot to offer checking accounts accessible by mobile phones, and it comes with a debit card, and monthly fees are waived if you use direct deposit, and it doesn’t rely on credit scores or credit bureau ratings. Wal-Mart is trying to tap into the vast “unbanked” market, which now gets raked over the coals at check cashing stores.
Earlier today, it was reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating whether bond fund manager Pimco inflated the returns of its Total Return Exchange Traded Fund run by founder Bill Gross. The probe is said to have sped up in recent weeks but has been going on for “at least a year.” Which means that it was happening when Mohamed El-Erian announced he was leaving the firm.
Investigators from the SEC’s enforcement division are examining whether the $3.6 billion Pimco Total Return ETF bought investments at discounted prices but relied on higher valuations for the investments when the fund calculated the value of its holdings shortly thereafter. Such a maneuver could make it seem as though the ETF had scored quick gains when it was in fact taking advantage of variations in the way some investments are valued in the bond market; which is another way of saying Pimco may have provided inaccurate information about the fund’s performance.
Do you remember where you were in 1988? Do you remember where you worked? Do you remember what you were paid? If you can’t remember what you were paid 26 years ago, don’t worry, there’s a good chance it is the same as today. The economic recovery has yet to translate into higher incomes for the typical American family. After adjusting for inflation, US median household income is still 8% lower than it was before the recession, 9% lower than at its peak in 1999, and essentially unchanged since the end of the Reagan administration. And the income of the median US household is just under $52,000; the same as it was in 1988. Now granted, that number, reported last week in the latest income and poverty data, is based on median income; also, it refers to households, and the typical household has changed over the years. Still…
Six years ago the financial crisis hit Wall Street, turning a housing crisis that was already hammering Main Street into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Job losses averaged nearly 800,000 per month between November 2008 and April 2009 as the unemployment rate climbed. The economy contracted at a rate of 8.3% between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. The crisis hit businesses big and small, but it hit small business harder.
Jobs at small businesses fell 60% from the pre-crisis peak in December 2007 until the private sector started adding jobs again in February 2010. That represents a decline that is 40% larger than the fall in jobs among larger businesses. This is especially problematic because small businesses employ half of the private sector workforce, and since 1995 small businesses have created about two out of every three net new jobs, or 65% of total net job creation. Small businesses have created jobs in every quarter since 2010, and are back to creating two out of every three net new jobs, but still remain well below the job creation levels that we need to see to fill the “jobs gap” left in the wake the recession.
Part of the decline in job creation has also been due to anemic new business formation. Over the past 20 years, businesses less than two years-old accounted for one-quarter of gross job creation even though they employed less than 10% of workers. But, during the crisis new business formation fell sharply. In the decade prior to the crisis, more than 620,000 firms were started every year. But, starts have averaged just about 550,000 annually since 2009, a decline of about 11%. And small business just keeps getting smaller; in 2000, the average new firm had 7.7 employees; by 2010, that number had declined to 5.5.
The formation and growth of small businesses depends on well-functioning credit markets, but throughout the recession and even during the recovery today critical parts of our credit markets are shut for small firms. Small business loans on the balance sheets of banks are down about 20% since the financial crisis; meanwhile, loans to larger businesses have risen by about 4% over the same period. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports that 37% of all small businesses applied for credit in the fall of 2013. About 45% did not apply, presumably because they did not need credit, but about 20% did not apply because they were discouraged from doing so. Of businesses that did apply, over 40% either received no capital at all or received less than the amount that they requested.
Part of the problem is that many small community banks closed in the crisis, and they haven’t been replaced; just one new community bank charter was granted in 2010, just 3 new charters in 2011. There were 6,840 banks and 1,173 thrifts last year, down from 14,507 banks and 3,566 thrifts in 1984. And of course the big banks just consolidated and got even bigger, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta reports that big banks are less likely to extend credit to a small business than a small regional bank.
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