Yellen the Dove on inflation

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“Inflation is a problem,” she said. Yet the problem isn’t excessive demand, rising wages, or a tight labor market, but “negative supply shocks.” Once the shocks wear off, the inflation rate can’t be sustained in the long run without a pick-up in wage growth, she said.

“There’s no textbook answer to what monetary policy should be doing at this time,” Yellen added.

Yes, there is – the mainstream says quite clearly ‘don’t add to demand during a negative supply shock. Or a triple negative supply shock. That will monetize the price increases and turn a relative value story into an inflation story.’

The FF rate is now below the year over year headline and core CPI; so, it’s easy for the Fed to now make the case the ‘real rate’ is negative and cutting it any could adversely alter long term employment and growth given the balance of risks between market functioning, inflation, and the output gap.

They also think they know that if markets are expecting a 25 basis point cut they need to do less than that to get a positive inflation response.

And, as before, they need to set a rate for the TAF and accept any bank legal collateral to be able to more effectively target LIBOR as desired.

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2008-04-16 US Economic Releases

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  • MBA Mortgage Applications
  • Bloomberg Global Confidence
  • Consumer Price Index
  • Housing Starts
  • Building Permits
  • Industrial Production
  • Capacity Utilization

2008-04-16 MBAVPRCH Index

MBAVPRCH Index (Apr 11)

Survey n/a
Actual 381.6
Prior 384.7
Revised n/a

Holding in its new, lower range.

2008-04-16 MBAVREFI Index

MBAVREFI Index (Apr 11)

Survey n/a
Actual 2866.0
Prior 2724.7
Revised n/a

Doing ok in this prime time for resets, which are peaking and then falling off.

2008-04-16 Bloomberg Global Confidence

Bloomberg Global Confidence (Apr)

Survey n/a
Actual 14.54
Prior 13.08
Revised n/a

Still down, but signs of a bottom.

In my humble opinion, inflation is ripping, and the Fed’s in a very bad place. April’s food and energy price hikes, along with hosts of others, and the weaker USD all are pointing to an upward surge for prices on a forward looking basis.The Fed’s forecasting models should be showing higher inflation as well.And futures markets continue to be an unreliable forecasting tool for the Fed.

2008-04-16 Consumer Price Index MoM

Consumer Price Index MoM (Mar)

Survey 0.3%
Actual 0.3%
Prior 0.0%
Revised n/a

2008-04-16 CPI Ex Food & Energy MoM

CPI Ex Food & Energy MoM (Mar)

Survey 0.2%
Actual 0.2%
Prior 0.0%
Revised n/a

2008-04-16 Consumer Price Index YoY

Consumer Price Index YoY (Mar)

Survey 4.0%
Actual 4.0%
Prior 4.0%
Revised n/a

2008-04-16 CPI Ex Food & Energy YoY

CPI Ex Food & Energy YoY (Mar)

Survey 2.4%
Actual 2.4%
Prior 2.3%
Revised n/a

From Karim:

Headline/Core divergence->limited passthrough

  • Headline 0.343% and stays at 4% y/y

  • Core rises 0.152% (after 0.04% last month), showing limited pass-through from headline and even more limited pass-through from wholesale level (PPI from yday).

  • Core rises from 2.3% to 2.4%, equates to about 1.9-2.0% on core PCE basis due to measurement differences

  • Food up 0.2% and gas up 1.3%

  • OER up 0.2%, apparel down 1.3%, vehicles down 0.1%

  • Lodging away from home down 0.6% and medical up only 0.1%, a bit below trend

Housing starts not looking good. The glimmer of hope is that prior months have been revised up for the last two reports, so there’s a chance this number could be revised substantially as well.

2008-04-16 Housing Starts

Housing Starts (Mar)

Survey 1010K
Actual 947K
Prior 1065K
Revised 1075K

2008-04-16 Building Permits

Building Permits (Mar)

Survey 970K
Actual 927K
Prior 978K
Revised 984K

From Karim:

Housing data shows drag continuing with at least the same intensity

  • Starts down 11.9%, boding poorly for current GDP

  • Permits down 5.8%, boding poorly for future GDP

  • Best news is not adding to inventories

2008-04-16 Industrial Production

Industrial Production (Mar)

Survey -0.1%
Actual 0.3%
Prior -0.5%
Revised -0.7%

May be due to exports, which are keeping GDP and employment muddling through

2008-04-16 Capacity Utilization

Capacity Utilization (Mar)

Survey 80.3%
Actual 80.5%
Prior 80.9%
Revised 80.3%

Staying too high for the typical recession.

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NYT: Let them eat corn

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Says it all about politics:

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

by Andrew Martin

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called the recent criticism of ethanol by foreign officials “a big joke.” He questioned why they were not also blaming a drought in Australia that reduced the wheat crop and the growing demand for meat in China and India.

“You make ethanol out of corn,” he said. “I bet if I set a bushel of corn in front of any of those delegates, not one of them would eat it.”

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2008-04-15 US Economic Releases

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  • Producer Price Index
  • Empire Manufacturing
  • NAHB Housing Market Index
  • ABC Consumer Confidence

2008-04-15 Producer Price Index MoM

Producer Price Index MoM (Mar)

Survey 0.6%
Actual 1.1%
Prior 0.3%
Revised n/a

2008-04-15 PPI Ex Food & Energy MoM

PPI Ex Food & Energy MoM (Mar)

Survey 0.2%
Actual 0.2%
Prior 0.5%
Revised n/a

2008-04-15 Producer Price Index YoY

Producer Price Index YoY (Mar)

Survey 6.2%
Actual 6.9%
Prior 6.4%
Revised n/a

2008-04-15 PPI Ex Food & Energy YoY

PPI Ex Food & Energy YoY (Mar)

Survey 2.8%
Actual 2.7%
Prior 2.4%
Revised n/a

2008-04-15 Producer Price Index TABLE

Producer Price Index TABLE

Inflation ripping.

From Karim:

Headline/Core divergence continues

  • Headline up 1.1% m/m and 6.9% y/y

  • Core up 0.2% m/m and 2.7% y/y

  • Food (+1.2%) and gas (+1.3%) lead the way up, computers (-3.2%) and passenger cars (-0.2%) lead the way down.

  • Intermediate and crude pressures remain intense, rising 2.3% and 8.0% respectively for the month

  • Further margin squeeze likely to put further downward pressure on capex, especially in light of weak economy and credit conditions (see below)

Empire jumps from -22.2 to 0.6. Index quite volatile and 10-20 point moves per month the norm as of late.

6mth expectations deteriorate from 25.8 to 19.6.

  • Shipments show largest jump from -5 to +17 (for current conditions)

  • Employment and average workweek both extremely weak

  • Capex intentions fall from 18 to 11.5

2008-04-15 Empire Manufacturing

Empire Manufacturing (Apr)

Survey -17.0
Actual 0.6
Prior -22.2
Revised n/a

Survey is colored by subjective recessions fears bouncing back some.

2008-04-15 NAHB Housing Market Index

NAHB Housing Market Index (Apr)

Survey 20
Actual 20
Prior 20
Revised n/a

Still looks to me like a bottom.

2008-04-15 ABC Consumer Confidence

ABC Consumer Confidence (Apr 13)

Survey n/a
Actual -39
Prior -34
Revised n/a

Still looking weak. Much like an export economy

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2008-04-15 EU Highlights

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As a point of logic seems their best move is to try to pressure the Fed to stop cutting.

Highlights:

ECB’s Stark, Ordonez Say 4% Key Rate May Not Contain Inflation
French Government Will Lift Minimum Wage by 2.3% on May 1
French annual inflation jumps to 17-year high
Italian inflation jumps to highest level since 1996
German Investor Confidence Unexpectedly Fell in April
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Answer to the USD question

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Ed says:

Warren,

Isn’t it also true that the US export boom is less a result of the weaker dollar, so much as it is the cause? Foreigners using the trade surplus dollars they were previously content to save, are now spending them, and the shopping list is sizable. In this sense, all the dollars we have been exporting for years are coming home to roost, and that explains a good chunk of the inflation we are seeing.

Ed

I agree the cause is foreigners switching as a sector from wanting to accumulate USD to not wanting to accumulate them, and therefore spending them.

However, I see the market forces working as follows:

The first desire is ‘not to save’ which drives the USD down either until the $ is somehow low enough where they want to save it again, which doesn’t make sense to me, or until the USD is low enough for them to spend them here, which makes a bit more sense to me.

And the other force is the decreased desire to export to us which is evidenced by higher import prices.

Last, this is all inflationary, and inflation is the other channel for getting rid of a trade gap.

For an extreme example, if there is sufficient inflation for the minimum wage to go to $60 billion per hour, the real trade gap is suddenly down to only an hour of labor, though still nominally at 60 billion.

The combination of rising net exports, falling imports, and inflation are all working together right now to digest the sudden shift from CBs and monetary authorities away from buying USD financial assets.

Fiscal adjustment checks start going out in a couple of weeks.

Rest of govt. spending going up as well.

GDP should muddle through and inflation continue to accelerate.

It may dawn on the Fed that the weak dollar is hurting the financial sector as the consumer is being squeezed by food/energy prices and therefore having trouble making loan payments. That’s the price of sticky wages, at least this time around.

Foreign CBs have no option regarding world currency stability but to try to put pressure on the Fed to stop cutting.

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FT: US credit rating under threat

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Seems no end to the stupidity that continues to spew out from all kinds of places.

You’d think the ratings agencies would have learned their lesson with Japan – downgraded below Botswana and still funded JGB’s at under 1% for years until the BOJ raised rates.

And last I saw ten year US credit default was around ten basis points?

I had a discussion with S&P years ago. Seem to remember a name ‘David’?

He seemed to sort of grasp that operationally governments with their own (non convertible) currencies and floating fx policies aren’t revenue constrained, but obviously didn’t quite get it when they downgraded Japan.

The eurozone is another issue, where they have downgraded national governments and that does mean something regarding risk, just like the US States, but with no legal safety net by the Federal authorities like the US. Fortunately the eurozone banking system hasn’t been tested, yet.

Simple trade: sell US credit default, buy Germany, for example.

US credit rating under threat

by Aline van Duyn

The US government’s need to provide financial backing to the state-sponsored mortgage financiers that dominate the US housing market could pose a risk to the country’s triple-A credit rating, Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, said on Monday.

In the event of a deep and prolonged US recession, S&P said the potential costs of propping up government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have implicit government backing, could cost the US government up to 10 per cent of GDP.

The costs of supporting broker-dealers like Bear Stearns in a dire economic situation would be much lower, at below 3 per cent of GDP, S&P said.

“The size of GSEs, coupled with their current level of common equity, could create a material fiscal burden to the government that would lead to downward pressure on its rating,” the S&P report said.

The S&P comments come amid increased pressure for better regulation of the mortgage financiers, especially as their role in the US housing market is likely to increase as they are used to provide support for struggling homeowners.

Policymakers are pushing for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the lesser-known Federal Home Loan Banks to pump liquidity into the US mortgage market and this has prompted regulators to call for stronger oversight of such institutions.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks have become the backbone of the troubled US mortgage market as purely private sources of finance have all but dried up or are offered only at punitive terms.

In the second half of 2007, about 90 per cent of new mortgage funding was provided by GSEs. They have about $6,300bn of public debt and mortgage securities outstanding, more than the $5,100bn of outstanding US government debt.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have no formal state guarantees but investors believe the US government would step in if the system got into trouble. This allows the agencies to raise funds at very low rates against a triple-A credit rating, in spite of high levels of leverage.

The capital surplus ratio for GSEs was recently reduced to 20 per cent from 30 per cent, allowing them to operate on a more leveraged basis.

In January, Moody’s Investors Service, another credit rating agency, said the US could risk its triple-A rating within a decade unless soaring healthcare costs and social security spending was curbed.

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2008-04-14 US Economic Releases

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2008-04-14 Advance Retail Sales

Advance Retail Sales (Mar)

Survey 0.0%
Actual 0.2%
Prior -0.6%
Revised -0.4%

2008-04-14 Retail Sales Less Autos

Retail Sales Less Autos (Mar)

Survey 0.1%
Actual 0.1%
Prior -0.2%
Revised -0.1%

2008-04-14 Retail Sales YoY

Retail Sales YoY

Survey n/a
Actual 2.0%
Prior 2.9%
Revised n/a

Down, but not yet at ‘traditional’ recession levels, particularly with exports as strong as they are.

2008-04-14 Retail Sales TABLE

Retail Sales TABLE

From Karim:

Recent trend intact and in line with confidence surveys:

Nominal gwth zero for Q1 consumer spending

  • March retail sales +0.2%, +0.1% ex-autos, 0.0% ex-gas, and +0.2% for control group (autos, gas, and building materials)

  • Building materials down 1.6% shows housing decline continues to exert impact

  • Following items also negative: electronics -0.4%, furniture -0.3%, clothing -0.5%. Food +0.4% and gas +1.1%, lead the way.

  • Despite minor upward revision to February, 3mth annualized rate of change 0.0% for overall retail sales and -2.2% for retail sales ex-gas.

2008-04-14 Business Inventories

Business Inventories (Feb)

Survey 0.6%
Actual 0.6%
Prior 0.8%
Revised 0.9%

2008-04-14 Manufacturing & Trade Inventories YoY

Business Inventories YoY

Survey n/a
Actual 5.2
Prior 4.9
Revised n/a

Inventories still very low for a recession, if we are in one.

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Re: Comments on G7 Statement on FX

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(an email)

>
>   On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 11:41 PM, Craig wrote:
>
>   Ok. So then it seems to me that it’d be a big change
>   for foreigners to panic on USD assets. Not saying it
>   couldn’t happen, but it’d need a big catalyst. In the
>   mean time, I suppose foreigners will peck away,
>   the dollar will do what it does and purchasing power
>   parity will provide some elastic limits on downside.
>
>   True?
>
>   Craig
>
>

Ironically, the ‘fundamentals’ of the $ are pretty good – purchasing power parity is good, the govt deficit is relatively small, and the relatively difficulty of getting $US credit helps as well.

But the technicals remain extremely negative (we’ve cut off the traditional buyers) CBs, monetary authorities, and chunks of our own pension funds.

So it’s not so much as concern about ‘foreigners’ in general, but specifically CBs and monetary authorities no longer accumulating perhaps $50 billion a month, and no one else stepping in to replace them, so instead the $ goes to a level where the trade gap goes away.

And that level of the $ can be anywhere, as while the correction process is ‘using’ the level of the $ to get the trade gap to 0, the trade gap is not that strong/precise a function of the level of the dollar.

It’s an example of a ‘cold turkey’ adjustment (the sudden cut off of all the $ accumulators at once) with no prior thought to the subsequent adjustment process, apart from the limited understanding that it would somehow drive exports, and the mistaken notion that exports are a ‘good thing.’

I do think the rest of the G7 thinks the ‘answer’ for the G7 is to convince the Fed to stop cutting rates.

As I mentioned a while back, the Fed has become an international ‘outlaw’ seemingly prodding the world to follow it in an international race to the bottom regarding inflation. It started the game ‘who inflates the most wins’ with their ‘beggar they neighbor’/mercantilist weak/$ policy to ‘steal’ (or maybe in the way the Fed sees it ‘reclaim’) world agg demand and support US gdp with US exports at the expense of foreign gdp.

Now it seems this policy is backfiring. The weak $ has seemingly raised food/energy prices for the US consumer, weakening the financial sector as less income is available for debt service as well as other consumption, and while exports have helped it’s only been enough to muddle through. And US inflation is sprinting ahead as well.

So the Fed rate cuts have not been seen to have helped the financial sector, the consumer, nor the US economy in general.

The Fed is being seen as destabilizing the world’s economy, weakening the US financial sector, depressing US consumer demand, depressing foreign domestic demand, and driving US to dangerous levels.

Once again it seems it’s being demonstrated that weakening your currency and inflating your way out of debt is not a road to prosperity.

And world markets are pricing in further US rate cuts.

Good morning!

Warren

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Money (USD)

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My take on the USD:

It was at a level based on foreigners wanting to accumulate $70 billion per month which also = the US trade gap (accounting identity).

Most of that desire to accumulate came from foreign CBs trying to support their exporters, oil producers accumulating USD financial assets, and foreign portfolios allocating some percentage of assets to USD assets.

Paulson cut off the CBs calling the currency manipulators and outlaws.

Bush cut off the oil producers by being perceived to be conducting a holy war.

Bernanke scared off the portfolio managers with what looks to them like an ‘inflate your way out of debt’ policy.

And US pension funds are diversifying out of USD into passive commodities and foreign securities.  Looks to me like the desire to accumulate USD overseas is falling towards zero rapidly.

This means they sell us less and buy more of our goods, services, and our real assets.

Volumes’ of non oil imports are falling and of oil imports are flat.

The dollar has gotten low enough for the trade gap to fall from over $70 billion to under $60 billion per month (February was an aberration IMHO).

The dollar will ‘adjust’ until it corresponds with a trade gap that = desired foreign accumulation of USD financial assets.

I see no reason to think the trade gap should not go to zero.

The USD probably has not traded down enough to reflect the zero desire to accumulate USD abroad.

The ECB has serious ideological issues regarding buying of USD.  Not the least of which they don’t want to give the impression that the USD is ‘backing’ the euro, which would be the appearance if they collected USD reserves.

The ECB has an inflation problem, and they believe the strong euro has kept it from being much worse.

The policy ‘shift’ might be the process of ending of US rate cuts at the next meeting by cutting less than expected.

This might first mean only a 25 basis point cut when the market prices in 50 basis points, followed by no cut when markets price in 25 basis points, for example.

This would firm the USD and soften the commodities near term, as after the last 75 basis point cut when markets were pricing 100 basis points.

But this does not change the foreign desires to accumulate USD as direct intervention by the ECB would, for example.

So the adjustment process that gets us to a zero trade gap will continue.

And it will continue to drive up headline CPI with core not far behind.

And US GDP will muddle through in the 0% to +2% range with weak private sector consumption being supported by exports, US government consumption, and moderate investment.

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