Housing Market

The dramatic rise in FHA insured loans in a time of historically low rates demonstrates two key aspects of the current American economy. The first point is that many US households have the inability to save for an adequate down payment on housing. Forget about the historical 20 percent down payment but many households cannot scrimp up even a modest 10 percent down payment.

Two weeks ago we reported in Geithner To DeMarco: "I Do Not Believe [Un-Socialism] Is The Best Decision For The Country" that TurboTax Tim did not take lightly to FHFA head Ed DeMarco's snubbing of the worst treasury secretary ever, when DeMarco refused to comply with Tim Geithner's "proposal" for mortgage principal reduction in effect forcing responsible taxpayers to bail out irresponsible ones. Lots of media posturing and free-market bashing ensued. Today, Tim has once again taken the offensive, and is announcing plans that the Treasury is accelerating the winddown of its backing of Fannie and Freddie and that going forward instead of a 10% dividend, the Treasury will be entitled to a "full income sweep" of the GSEs on behalf of the US Treasury. One can only hope that the loan loss reserve reduction which was the sole source of Fannie and Freddie "profit" (see Bank of America) will continue. And since it won't, it is once again Tim Geithner who ends up with the short end of the stick in his idiotic attempt to escalate a matter which is far beyond his meager comprehension skills. And here is the kicker: "The agreements require an accelerated reduction of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s investment portfolios. Those portfolios will now be wound down at an annual rate of 15 percent – an increase from the 10 percent annual reduction required in the previous agreements. As a result of this change, the GSEs’ investment portfolios must be reduced to the $250 billion target set in the previous agreements four years earlier than previously scheduled." Oops MBS market, unless of course there is someone who will miraculous step up and buy the "excess investment portfolio"... who could that be... who could that be? Ah yes: Giethner just greenlighted the MBS purchases (sorry MBS twist - no cookie for you) portfion of QE3. And finally, following today's unambiguous renationalization of the GSEs, does this mean that US debt is now $16+6 trillion or over $22 trillion courtesy of the GSEs which are now on the US balance sheet?

Government Was Just Trying to "Foam the Runway" to Help Giant Banks

The vital question of the moment is whether of not The Bernank will signal an intention of moving towards QE3 in his much-anticipated 'Jackson Hole' conference in two weeks. Citi's Tom Fitzpatrick believes "it would be irresponsible to do so and that we need a more 'responsible fiscal policy' which will not materialize as long as we have an 'irresponsible monetary policy' bailing policymakers out". However, what we think in this regard is totally irrelevant to this discussion for it is what we think the Fed thinks that is critical. Recent data seems to have been a little more supportive of the economy (on the face of it) and may lead the Fed to stay on hold in the near term (September meeting). This will almost certainly raise the bar extremely high for further easing as we head into the Presidential race proper. If this window closes then a move before December will be extremely unlikely barring a major financial/market/economic shock, since after the 9/13 meeting, there are no more meetings until 12/12. However this increases the danger of the Fed getting 'caught behind the curve' which must be balanced with the 'mistake' of one-monetary-step-too-far with very real inflationary consequences.

When observing the trends in the housing market, one has two choices: i) listen to the bulls who keep repeating that "housing has bottomed", a common refrain which has been repeated every single year for the past four, or ii) look at the facts. We touched briefly on the facts earlier today when we presented the latest housing starts data:construction of single family residences remains 46 percent below the long-term trend; the more volatile multifamily houses is 15 percent below trend and demand for new homes 47 percent below. This is indicative of reluctance by households to make long-term investments due to fear of another downturn in housing prices. Bloomberg summarizes this succinctly: "This historically weak demand for new homes is inhibiting the recovery of demand for construction workers as well, about 2.3 million of whom remain without work." But the best visual representation of the housing "non-bottom" comes courtesy of the following chart of homes in negative or near-negative equity, which via Bloomberg Brief, is soared in Q4, and is now back to Q1 2010 level at over 13.5 million. What this means is that the foreclosure backlog and the shadow inventory of houses on the market could be as large as 13.5 million in the future, which translates into one simple word: supply.

The National Association of Home Builders just released it latest monthly housing market index, which rose from 35 to 37. As headlines proudly blast, this is the highest level of confidence since February 2007. The NAHB chairman was positively giddy: "From the builder’s perspective, current sales conditions, sales prospects for the next six months and traffic of prospective buyers are all better than they have been in more than five years,” said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. “While there is still much room for improvement, we have come a long way from the depths of the recession and the outlook appears to be brightening." Sadly, as the chart below proves, it doesn't take much to get the NAHB confident these days. We present the fudge free data on housing completions: not starts, not permits, completions, which is what you get on the other side of the homebuilding process once all i and t's have been dotted and crossed, because one can fudge both the start and permit metric more than Bank of Spain's X-13-ARIMA seasonal "models" can make MS' IPO track record successful. We leave it up to readers to decide just what homebuilders are so very confident about. Residual record hopium sloshing in the system notwithstanding.

It's quiet out there, quieter than usual. Perhaps this is because Merkel is in Canada today and so hasn't had a chance to crash any dreams of magic money trees yet. The EURUSD however did drop preemptively without any news and touched on 3 day lows moments ago under 1.2280, forcing DraghiFX and his long EURUSD call to pay another margin call. Eventwise, in Europe Spain continues to pretend it does not exist, with its bond yields quietly sliding lower even as the country's economy continues to deteriorate, on expectations that Rajoy will ask for a bailout, when in fact the lower yields go, the more unlikely this event is. Of course, all that needs to happen for the deer in headlight market to snap out of its trance is a reminder of just how broke Spain is before it does need a bailout. In the meantime, Spain is extending unemployment benefits. More importantly, it seems that the Chinese slowdown is about to hit Germany like a brick wall: Hamburg - Europe’s second-largest container harbor - reported its first quarterly decline in container volumes in nine quarter. And now the recession is really coming to Germany.

The Status Quo around the globe is trying to manage perceptions to foster the illusion that all the high expectations can be met; but the reassurances are increasingly hollow, and the promises increasingly threadbare. People are waking up, one at a time, to the reality that all the promises and guarantees are fantasy, and their emotional response is deeply negative: they feel betrayed by the Status Quo and its institutions, and they feel a volatile mixture of rage, distrust and resignation. Studies have found that people (usually those in the lower social and financial tiers) with low expectations tend to be happier than those with high (and unmet) expectations. The Status Quo bought the support of the masses by raising expectations of permanently rising prosperity and security for all. Now that these near-infinite claims cannot be fulfilled, the Status Quo has no institutional ability to lower expectations to more realistic levels. It only knows how to spin artifice and fantasy, in the vain hope that managing perceptions will substitute for managing reality. This is how credibility is lost. Managing perceptions is a dangerous game, as the perceptions are pushed ever-farther from reality, increasing the shockwave when the two snap together: it won't be reality rising to meet lofty perceptions, it will be perceptions and expectations plummeting to meet reality. This is how the Status Quo will collapse: it will lose the faith of its people, and become the target of their wrath.

With less than three months to go, the outcome of the November election remains highly uncertain. SocGen notes that, as always, economic performance over the coming months will be a key determinant of who wins and who loses. If the elections were held today, the most likely outcome would be a Republican win in both Congressional races and a Democratic win in the race for the White House. This means that any new significant legislation will almost certainly have to be a product of compromise. In this sense, we may very well be looking at a status quo in terms of bipartisanship and gridlock which have dominated Washington politics over the past few years. This would be bad news at a time when the country faces a number of serious challenges with significant long-term implications. From the economy to long-term fiscal health, and from the debt-ceiling to Housing, Healthcare, and Energy policy differences, the following provides a succinct review.

Last week was a scratch in terms of events, if not in terms of multiple expansion, as 2012 forward EPS continued contraction even as the market continued rising and is on the verge of taking out 2012 highs - surely an immediate catalyst for the New QE it is pricing in. This week promises to be just as boring with few events on the global docket as Europe continues to bask in mid-August vacation, and prepare for the September event crunch. Via DB, In Europe, apart from GDP tomorrow we will also get inflation data from the UK, Spain and France as well as the German ZEW survey. Greece will also auction EU3.125bn in 12-week T-bills to help repay a EU3.2bn bond due 20 August held by the ECB. Elsewhere will get Spanish trade balance and euroland inflation data on Thursday, German PPI and the Euroland trade balance on Friday. In the US we will get PPI, retail sales and business inventories tomorrow. On Wednesday we get US CPI, industrial production, NY Fed manufacturing, and the NAHB  housing index. Building permits/Housing starts and Philly Fed survey are the highlights for Thursday before the preliminary UofM consumer sentiment survey on Friday.

Yes, There's A NEW Bubble It's Near Guaranteed To Pop Bringing Consumer Discretionary and Durable Sector Stocks Along With It!

• Gu Kailai Trial Has Ended, verdict imminent (WSJ)
• Greek unemployment rises to 23.1 pct in May, new record (Reuters)
• Greece’s Power Generator Tests Euro Fitness Amid Blackout Threat (Bloomberg)
• Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Results May Ease Wind-Down Push (Bloomberg)
• Monti takes off gloves in euro zone fight (Reuters)
• U.S. Fed extends comment period for Basel III (Reuters)
• HP in $8bn writedown on services arm (FT) - must be good for +10% in the stock
• News Corp in $2.8bn writedown (FT) - must be good for +10% in the stock
• Japan to Pass Sales Tax Bill After Noda Avoids Election Push (Bloomberg)
• China May Set New Property Controls This Month, Securities Says (Bloomberg)

Over the past month America's ever vigilant law enforcers have taken to task not one but two foreign (domestic bank lobbies are sufficiently large to make Congress muppets perfectly eager to look the other way as noted previously) banks: HSBC and now Standard Chartered, for money laundering. Yet, when it comes to the true elephant in the room, which is not foreign and is fully domestic, they continue to ignore events such as this one just described by the Wall Street Journal: "A Florida home that originally listed for $60 million has sold for $47 million, a record for a single-family house in Miami-Dade County. The home, in Indian Creek Village, had been on the market since early 2011, when construction was still being completed. The asking price was reduced to $52 million this year." And the punchline: "The identity of the buyer, a foreigner who purchased the home in the name of a U.S.-based limited-liability company, couldn't be learned." In other words a foreigner who may or may not have engaged in massive criminal activity and/or dealt with Iran, Afghanistan, or any other bogeyman du jour at some point in their past, and is using US real estate merely as a money-laundering front perhaps? Sadly, we will never know. Why? As explained before, it is all thanks to the National Association of Realtors - those wonderful people who bring you the existing home sales update every month (with a documented upward bias every single time) - which just so happens is the only organization that actively lobbied for and received an exemption from AML regulation compliance. In other words, unlike HSBC, the NAR is untouchable, even if it were to sell a triplex to Ahmedinejad on West 57th street.

Recent research by Robert Shiller indicates sounding the all-clear for a housing recovery is premature since the home-price rebound, if that's what it is, doesn't yet have momentum - which is the most powerful driver of home prices. As he notes in today's WSJ, momentum is a modestly weak force in the stock market but the most important driver of the 'feedback loop' in home-price increases (followed by unemployment). "It could be a bottom, I just don't know", he adds pointing to the large overhang of homes that are either in foreclosure of near it - which would push prices down further if they were ever released to the market (wanting to see momentum carry into the Spring to be convinced). Critically, he sees bubbles once again forming in some areas, commenting that investors have been "primed to think speculatively" adding that "There was a change in our mindset. Now we start thinking about the housing market as like the stock market." Our question is, if the increasingly speculative housing market is part of the CPI basket, why then is the stock market not also part of it?

Human nature hasn’t changed in centuries. We have faith that humanity has progressed, but the facts prove otherwise. We are a species susceptible to the passions of power, greed, delusion, and an inflated sense of our own intellectual superiority. And we still like to kill each other in the name of country and honor. There is nothing progressive about crashing the worldwide economic system and invading countries for “our” oil. History has taught that there will forever be manias, bubbles and the subsequent busts, but how those in power deal with these episodes has been and will be the determining factor in the future of our economic system and country. Humanity is deeply flawed; the average human life is around 80 years; men of stature, wealth, over-confidence in their superior intellect, and egotistical desire to leave their mark on history, always rise to power in government and the business world; this is why history follows a cyclical path and the myth of human progress is just a fallacy.