Archive - May 8, 2015 - Story

What happens next?

Amid tense negotiations between Greek PM Tsipras, the IMF, and EU creditors, some officials say the chances of an agreement have increased materially since Yanis Varoufakis was sidelined after infuriating his eurozone counterparts in Riga last month. Now, just when there appeared to be some hope that Athens may avert a catastrophic default, Varoufakis has reportedly distributed a new "blueprint" for Greece that has little in common with the plan advanced by the country's reshuffled negotiating team. 

Earlier we reported that all the jobs added in April were part-time, or over 400,000, while full-time jobs decreased by over 200,000 pushing them further under the pre-recession peak. Here is another stunning data point: of the 255K workers added in the household survey when broken down by age group, more than all, or 266K went to workers aged 55 and older also known as the age cohort which is realizing it is never going to retire under the Fed's centrally-planned regime.

For the first time since July 2008, Wholesale Sales fell for the 4th month in a row in March (-0.2% vs +0.5% expectation). On a YoY basis, this is the worst sales drop since November 2008. Perhaps even more problematic is the weakness in inventories - which will drag Q1 GDP even lower - as the last time we saw a weaker inventory growth (+0.1% in March) was May 2013. Wholesale Inventories to Sales remain at Lehman (and 2000) highs.

As next week's Eurogroup meeting's last chance to get more cash, ahead of the looming threat of a €780mm payments due to The IMF, rapidly approaches, the left-wing Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has forecast a "happy ending" to fraught negotiations on the cash-for-reforms deal. EU creditors are less enthusiastic, as Reuters reports, noting talks were making progress, though not enough for a deal next Monday. Tsipras promised to do "whatever it takes in order to reach... an honest and mutually beneficial agreement with our partners", but gave no indication of yielding on the lenders' core demands for painful reforms.

For all the talk about a jobs recovery and about a US economy that has put the great financial crisis and recession of 2007/8 in the rear view mirror, don't tell it to those workers who desire a full-time job and instead are forced to settle with measly part-time offerings (mostly courtesy of Obamacare). Because as the chart below shows, as of April 2015, the number of full-time jobs remained well below the pre-recession peak, which incidentally was hit on December 2007, the month the last recession officially started.

The markets may have overshot, rising beyond levels warranted by the underlying fundamentals. Oil inventories are still at 80 year highs. The 487 million barrels of oil sitting in storage will take quite a while to drawdown. Crucially, oil production is still exceeding demand, leaving oil markets well-supplied.

"Bad news is good news" once again as between stagnant manufacturing employment and very weak revisions has provided just the ammunition to send stocks and bond (prices) surging. Gold & Silver spiked after the report but were beaten back as The Dollar's kneejerk drop was instantly bid.

We've seen The Fed 'leak' its minutes and its statements. We've seen RBA 'leak' its statement. And, judging by today's very early and sizable move in USDJPY, someone was very confident of the direction FX would move post-payrolls...

While the April payrolls came almost precisely as expected, at 223K, a tiny 5K below the 228K expected, the reason stock are soaring is that the already abysmal March payroll prints was revised even lower to just 85,000, the weakest print since June 2012, and pushing the 3 month average job gain to under 200K, or a level which the Fed has indicated previously it will hardly do much if anything material. And, as a result and as we noted in our market wrap today, with a June hike now looking unlikely, the S&P has exploded higher.

When you, like me, are used to a proportional representation system, it feels bizarre that the third largest party hardly gains a seat, but still, Nigel Farage has had a lot of beneficial influence on Britain's EU policy.  Hopefully, Brussels also gets the message but I doubt it. The EU never rolls anything back. It continues to amass more and more control in all areas.  The bureaucracy in Brussels has no self-criticism. No regrets. No matter how much and how often it fails. It just continues the roll out of its powers, and it will continue unabated, until someone says enough is enough. Until someone says stop.   The election outcome in Britain is our one chance to say stop!

• Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage resign as Tories sweep to victory (Telegraph)
• Bonds and stocks rebound, sterling soars after UK election (Reuters)
• Cameron Set to Return With U.K. Majority as SNP Sweeps Scotland (BBG)
• Tory win brings marked EU exit risk (Reuters)
• Why did Labour lose this election? It never tried to win it (Telegraph)
• Stock Buybacks Hit New Records (WSJ)
• Hard Money Comes Easy as Wall Street Funds Home Flippers (BBG)
• Justice Department to Investigate Baltimore Police (WSJ)
• Saudi Arabia mulling land operations on Yemen border (Reuters)

The last two months have been nothing if not a lesson in the disater that is the economic-forecasters of the world. With a 3-sigma beat followed by a 5-sigma miss, hope abounds that April will be the 'goldilocks' print - just cold enough to leave the Fed on hold and just hot enough to 'prove' growth remains. Goldman expects nonfarm payroll job growth of 230k in April, in line with consensus expectations. While labor market indicators were mixed in April, the employment components of service sector surveys were strong and better weather conditions should provide a boost. In addition, they see some upside risk to the forecast from a calendar effect, and expect the unemployment rate to decline by one-tenth to 5.4% and average hourly earnings to rise 0.2%.

While the US is waking up in anticipation of what is once again said to be the "most important nonfarm payrolls number" at least since the last most important such number, because anything 250,000 and above puts the June rate hike right back on the Fed calendar, while a collapse in this lagging indicator will be explained away with harsh rain showers in April, and send stocks soaring due to yet another delay in tightening expectations despite Yellen's outright warning of overvalued stocks, the UK has been up all night following a dramatic election, whose outcome has been largely the opposite of what the experts predicted, with Conservatives set to win an outright majority, resulting in embarrassment for Labor, the Liberal Democrats and the UKIP, both of which have already seen dramatic changes in their leadership, and moments ago both Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage announced they would stand down as party leaders.

With deadlines looming ever closer - and the Germans far more pessimistic than the Greeks - we await the next hurdle to slow the process...