To Hike Or Not To Hike-Is That Really The Question To Ask?

Financial Review

To Hike or Not To Hike

Sinclair Noe — September 11, 2015

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DOW + 102 = 16,433
SPX + 8 = 1961
NAS + 26 = 4822
10 YR YLD – .04 = 2.18%
OIL – 1.12 = 44.80
GOLD – 3.70 – 1108.20
SILV – .13 = 14.68

The S&P 500 index was up 2.1% for the week, the best weekly gains since July.  The Dow was up 2.1% for the week, and the Nasdaq gained 3%.

The Senate has blocked an anti-Iran deal resolution. Senate Democrats successfully fended off an effort by the Republican-led Congress to dismantle the Iran deal with a disapproval resolution. While the Senate killing the resolution should mean that Congress’s bid to undo the deal is over, the House is fighting on with several bills aimed at expressing their disapproval. There’s even talk of filing lawsuits against the president.

Russia is calling for Washington to restart direct military-to-military cooperation to avert “unintended incidents” near Syria, at a time when U.S. officials say Moscow is building up forces to protect President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The U.S. is leading a campaign of air strikes against ISIS fighters in Syrian air space, and a greater Russian presence would raise the prospect of the Cold War superpower foes encountering each other on the battlefield. Both Moscow and Washington say their enemy is ISIS, but Russia supports the government of Assad, while the U.S. says his presence makes the situation worse.

The White House has announced that the U.S. is preparing to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees for the 2016 fiscal year. The Syrian Civil War is now in its fifth year and more than 4 million people have become refugees. Syria’s neighbors currently host the majority of the country’s refugees. As conditions deteriorated, many refugees made the dangerous trip to Europe. European Union governments are likely to agree in principle to shelter 160,000 refugees from crisis zones. To date, the U.S. has resettled less than 1,500 Syrian refugees out of 18,000 referred by the United Nations.

A week before the Federal Reserve’s most critical policy decision in years, Wall Street opinion makers can’t agree on anything. Not only is there no consensus about whether the Fed will end its seven-year-old policy of zero interest rates, but views on the fallout from such a move are wildly disparate.  We’ll all find out more on Wednesday, when the FOMC issues its statement. As divided as the market is on that decision, it’s the aftermath that stirs the real split. Many say the economy is too weak for a rate hike, and fear the markets could tank. Others say the rate hike is warranted, even necessary, and would signal the economy is strong.

The real question is what will happen when interest rates rise? First up, a rate hike would strengthen the dollar, particularly if the hike is part of a long-term cycle. A stronger dollar would likely result in money flowing into the US. A stronger dollar means assets priced in dollars would go down in price; so we might anticipate weakness in commodities such as oil, industrial metals, and precious metals – pretty much all commodities except agriculture. In this way, a rate rise would be deflationary.

A stronger dollar would put even more pressure on emerging market currencies, which have already experienced pressure; there is still plenty of dollar denominated debt in emerging markets. Countries with current account deficits could expect to feel the pressure, led probably by Brazil.

For real estate, there is no question that lower interest rates spurred real estate purchasing activity. So, it stands to reason that an increase in rates will have the opposite effect, by reducing demand due to higher costs of money. Some say that a slight rise will cause a short-term increased demand for purchasing real estate; people think that rates will continue to rise, potentially keeping them out of the market in the future, and so they act. The longer-term effect is to tap the brakes on real estate.

For stocks on Wall Street, the impact of higher rates is tougher to call. Historically, there is no direct correlation between the start of a rate-rising cycle and a drop in stock prices. The reasoning is that rates are hiked when the economy is strong and the economy is humming along, perhaps humming along a bit too fast. Historically, Wall Street reacts negatively to surprise moves by the Fed (think 1987) but the Fed has been warning they will hike rates and they will do so slowly and incrementally – no surprises, just some guessing about the exact date. Most investors aren’t confident that the economy is strong right now; earnings growth has been flat, stocks have suffered a correction, and there is still slack in the labor market.

Ultimately, the stock market will respond to the fixed income and credit markets, and this is pretty straightforward; higher target rates set by the Fed will send bond yields higher, which means bond prices must go down.

With yields already low, the proportionate falls in prices need to be that much greater and the biggest price drops will come for the assets with the greatest duration. The twist here is that long duration assets are widely perceived as less risky, because they carry a lower risk of default; for example: corporate bonds, or municipal bonds. Junk bonds carry greater credit risk, and are considered less sensitive to a rise in interest rates.

The biggest risk is that markets get panicked. People who think they have a low risk asset suddenly realize they are exposed, and they hit the sell button, which can lead to a herd or mob mentality. If prices go too far south too fast, credit markets can freeze, and when that happens, everything freezes. The gears grind to a halt and the markets crash. There really is no reason to expect a crash. The economy can withstand a little quarter point rate increase. We don’t know what the Fed will announce on Wednesday, but we should not be surprised by a hike.

Of course, if you don’t like volatility, you could just stop playing the game for a while. Investors pulled another $19 billion from equity funds over the past week. The exodus from emerging markets also continued, with losses extending into their ninth week. Emerging equity funds shed $4.5 billion, while U.S. equities saw outflows of $15.9 billion and European stocks lost $800 million. Japanese funds were the only category to post inflows. The data also that global equity funds had shed $46 billion over the past four weeks. Year-to-date outflows from emerging stocks total $58 billion.

Consumer sentiment declined in September to the lowest level in year as Americans anticipated a weaker economy in face of a global slowdown and turbulent financial markets. The University of Michigan’s preliminary index dropped to 85.7 from 91.9 in August, the largest one-month decline since the end of 2012. Households were less upbeat about future growth in employment and wages than a few months earlier as 73 percent of respondents reported hearing news of negative economic developments.

Wholesale prices were flat in August, held down by a sharp decline in gasoline prices. The producer price index was unchanged last month on a seasonally adjusted basis. Excluding the volatile categories of food, energy and trade margins, core producer prices edged up 0.1%. Over the past year overall producer prices have fallen an unadjusted 0.8%, unchanged from July. The core rate has risen 0.7% in the same span.

How low can oil go? Goldman Sachs has cut its 2016 forecast to $45 a barrel from $57—and it’s leaving open the possibility that prices could go much lower than that. Goldman says the global surplus of oil is even bigger than previously thought and that could drive prices as low as $20 a barrel. Goldman said in a report e-mailed this morning that it is cutting its Brent and WTI crude forecasts through 2016, in part because a failure to reduce production fast enough may require prices near the $20 level to clear the oversupply.

The Goldman report stands in contrast to a report yesterday from the International Energy Agency, estimating that crude stockpiles will diminish in the second half of next year as supply outside OPEC declines by the most since 1992, with drops in U.S. shale production accounting for 80 percent of the decline. The IEA thinks lower supply will support prices. Twenty bucks isn’t Goldman’s most likely scenario but it’s a nice dramatic number that generates lots of tweets, as were the forecasts by Goldman and others in the not-so-distant past that oil would hit $150-$200 a barrel.

Copper prices dropped today, ending the metal’s longest rally since June. Copper prices have fallen 15 percent this year amid concerns that slower growth in emerging markets will reduce demand. Tighter U.S. monetary policy could further damp consumption as foreign currencies weaken and make the metal more expensive for overseas buyers. Copper for delivery in three months sank 0.5 percent to settle at $2.43 per pound. Prices climbed in the previous four sessions, rising 5.4 percent on concern that supplies would tighten as miners including Glencore took steps to cut production.

Nate Silver from FiveThirtyEight has run the numbers on the 2015 NFL Football season. He figures the season will come down to the Patriots and the Seahawks, and Seattle will win the Super Bowl, even though the Patriots will have win more games – 11.3 to be precise. Silver predicts the Cards will win 8.2 games – not enough to win the division, but more than San Francisco.

Arizona state troopers took two people into custody today who they believe might be connected to a string of 11 recent highway shootings. One detainee was described as a “person of interest.” So far, eight vehicles have been hit by bullets while police haven’t specified what hit the other three. This doesn’t mean the cops have caught the shooter or shooters, just that they have someone in custody. Be careful out there.

Financial Review

Not Patient But No Hurry

Sinclair Noe — March 18, 2015

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:16 — 6.1MB)

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DOW + 227 = 18,076
SPX + 25 = 2099
NAS + 45 = 4982
10 YR YLD – .11 = 1.95%
OIL + 1.25 = 44.71
GOLD + 18.30 = 1166.90
SILV + .36 = 15.99

Today is Fed decision day. The Federal Reserve released a policy statement along with quarterly economic projections followed by a Janet Yellen news conference. In the statement, the Fed removed the phrase about being “patient” regarding an interest rate increase, which might seem like bad news for Wall Street; except, they came up with new language which sounds like they will be …, well, patient about increasing interest rates.

Here is the new language: The Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term. 
 
So, now we are looking for “further improvement in the labor market” and reasonable confidence” about inflation.

If this sounds like so much word play, well it is; but the bottom line is that they did not make a firm commitment to raising rates in June, and it could be quite some time until we see interest rates rise. Wall Street liked it and went from a triple digit loss to a triple digit gain.

Maybe Wall Street shouldn’t be so happy. The flip side of the interpretation is that there is still way too much slack in the labor force and we are dealing with disinflation and maybe even deflation. Throw in weak economic data and add a dash of a very strong dollar and aggressive monetary policy from the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank which may already be having an effect similar to a rate increase by cutting into US exports. And you are looking at Fed monetary policy that has painted itself into a dovish corner. Or maybe we can just chalk it up to bad winter weather and a temporary drop in oil prices; whatever, Wall Street seems to love uncertainty when it comes to raising rates.

The Fed’s economic forecasts see the economy growing 2.3% to 2.7% in 2015, below its prior target of 2.5% to 3%. Nor does the Fed see the U.S. growing more than 2.7% in 2016 or 2017, even with the unemployment expected to fall to as low as 4.8% from its current 5.5% level. And then converting that economic forecast into a dot plot chart, shows interest rates going from zero to  0.625% by the end of the year, down from an earlier projection of 1.125% by the end of 2015.

After the Fed issued the statement, Janet Yellen held a news conference. She said that even though the Fed removed the word patience, they will be patient. Other highlights of the news conference: Yellen says productivity has been “disappointingly low.” She said that equity valuations “appear on the high side but not outside of historical ranges,” and she had no comment of specific sectors, such as biotech. She said the Fed hasn’t made a decision about when to reduce its balance sheet. She also said the Fed can’t change the “brazen” behavior at some of the banks it supervises; which seems like a strange thing for a regulator to admit. And regarding the specifics about just how much improvement the Fed would need to see in the labor market and how confident they would need to be about inflation, well, that was all a little vague but Yellen says the Fed will know it when they see it.

For now, the Fed has opened the door for a rate hike but they don’t appear to be in a hurry to cross the threshold.

Oil extended losses earlier today, and then turned higher following the Fed announcement. Late yesterday the American Petroleum Institute said its data showed U.S. crude stockpiles rose by a massive 10.5 million barrels in the week ended March 13. That was more than double market expectations. This morning the EIA reported that stockpiles rose by 9.6 million barrels to 458 million barrels last week; that’s a new record, and storage has been surging for 10 consecutive weeks. Oil prices have been falling since mid-2014, but the decline stalled in February, raising expectations that prices had bottomed out. But Nymex oil has lost roughly 15% month to date as production has surged despite lower prices; even if we haven’t seen a corresponding drop in retail prices yet; always a little lag in lowering prices at the pump.

Prices are low, storage is filling up, and oil-drilling rigs are being idled at an unprecedented rate. But the U.S. oil boom hasn’t slowed yet.  Global oil demand marches higher each and every year by nearly a million barrels per day. Inventories aren’t likely to max out, there is still room in the storage tanks; but even the possibility of that happening is adding pressure to an oversupplied oil market.

Supply and demand have both been freakishly in tandem for the last 15 years; each up by the same million barrels. Global demand is right around 93 million barrels a day; so just a swing of a few million barrels per day can swing the price from $40 a barrel to $120 a barrel. So, we will see domestic production growth slow, probably sooner rather than later. OPEC is expected to cut production in June. So, the thinking, including Fed forecasts, is that oil prices will rise again, with all the attendant implications for the economy.

There is something that could change the equation for oil price volatility – renewable energy. The cost of solar cells has fallen 75% over the last six years. Meanwhile, fuel efficiency has been improving. Renewable energy doesn’t have to replace oil in order to put a thumb down on global energy prices. It merely needs to become the “swing producer,” what the US became in the past half-decade thanks to the fracking boom, the additional source of supply that tips the balance.

Oil prices may go lower, but at some point the price movement will swing and probably move higher, which would encourage some oil producers to tap wells that are being idled today, but higher oil prices will also encourage more renewable supplies. Eventually, all these wild swings in energy prices will give way to stable, predictable energy, but not just yet.

Greece frustrated its main creditors yesterday by refusing to update euro zone peers on its reform progress at a scheduled teleconference, insisting that the discussions should be escalated to tomorrow’s EU summit. Prime Minister Alex Tsipras hopes to unlock funds from the country’s $254 billion bailout package. Greece faces about $2.1 billion in debt payments on Friday. Athens is likely to run out of cash by the end of the month. The IMF says Greece is its most “unhelpful client ever.” This is all pointing to a possible Greek exit from the Eurozone.

And it is a safe bet that the ECB has been calculating the possibility of a Greek Exit. Greece has about € 320 billion in debt. You would have to think an exit would mean default. And you might wonder why Greece would default when there was already a bailout, two bailouts actually. In the first bailout, the ECB allowed European nations and banks to dump sovereign bonds onto the ECB balance sheet in exchange for cash. In the second bailout, the ECB dumped Greek bonds onto banks, mainly French and German banks. About 80% of the bailout money went to Greek bondholders, not to the Greek economy. So, the earlier bailouts were about giving money to banks that were using Greek bonds as collateral to meet capital reserve requirements. It had almost nothing to do with helping Greece.

So, if Greece defaults, what are the implications? Well Greek debt amounts to about 2% of Europe’s GDP. Why not take a hit and give Greece a fresh start with a square deal that has them make much smaller payments with a haircut for the bondholders? And the most likely answer is that the Troika – the ECB, and the IMF, and the Euro Monetary Union – don’t care a flip about Greece. The fear is that if Greece gets a deal, then Spain and Italy and Portugal and maybe even France will want a deal; and then you are talking about € 3 trillion in sovereign debt, which in turn has been used as collateral for something like € 100 trillion in various derivatives deals. So, the Troika can’t afford a Greek default and they can’t afford a precedent of leniency; which means the preferred approach is to take a hard line to force the Greeks into a bad deal, again.

Just one little problem, now, it is obvious that it is a bad deal. The Greek voters voted against more austerity and more bad deal. Other Europeans see what is happening to Greece and they don’t’ want the same deal. Violent protests hit the streets of the German city of Frankfurt today, as anti-austerity protesters rallied against the opening of a new $1.4 billion building for the European Central Bank.

Premera Blue Cross, which sells health insurance in the northwestern US, said information on 11 million people may have been exposed in a cyberattack uncovered six weeks ago. Hackers may have accessed information including names, Social Security numbers, bank accounts and medical information. The company says it discovered the breach on Jan. 29, said notified the FBI, and is sending letters to affected individuals.

Facebook is updating its PC and mobile Messenger apps to allow users to send cash to each other. Once users link a Visa or MasterCard debit card to their Messenger account, they will be able to send their friends money for free by tapping a dollar sign in the chat box. Some are now speculating that WhatsApp will also join rival messaging platforms to support payments.