Recession

The latest consumer-credit data showed a slowing in the growth of the borrow-to-spend trend that had re-appeared through the holiday shopping period. This deceleration signals the deleveraging of the consumer is back and as the following charts from Morgan Stanley shows once people start saving historically, they have tended to remain saving; and that in the kind of low-/no-growth environment (or more specifically a balance sheet recession) we see a lack of credit demand even as credit availability is high. The momentum of saving and the correct focus on debt minimization as opposed to profit- (or living-standard) maximization will eventually outweigh the ever-increasing need for dollar-debasement money-printing flow to maintain the social market status quo. Add to this deleveraging concern the fact that Europe is seeing bank lending contract absolutely (notably weaker than in the US for now) amid tighter lending conditions and this is just another example of the cloggage in the Fed/ECB's transmission channels in this environment.

The Wizard predicts it will be Greece, Portugal and Ireland all back at the trough in 2012 and Spain lining up for its first feeding. Italy remains a question mark but with a real debt to GDP ratio of 200% the structural issues will not be overcome by anything that Mr. Monti has proposed to date. As we all focus on the sovereigns in the last few days I point out that the European banks are down around 2%-4.5% in Germany, Italy and Spain today while the largest bank in Portugal has seen its share price drop 15% this morning.  You may ignore the ugliness and the markets may ignore it for this or that day but the European ugliness is not going away and I would be a seller on any pop in equities or risk assets because the European landscape is a quite Bleak House.

Last night it was uber-dove Janet Yellen, today it is uberer-dove, former Goldmanite (what is it about Goldman central bankers and easing: Dudley unleashing QE2 in 2010, Draghi unleashing QE LTRO in Europe?) Bill Dudley joining the fray and saying QE is pretty much on the table. Of course, the only one that matters is Benny, and he will complete the doves on parade tomorrow, when he shows that all the hawkish rhetoric recently has been for naught. Cutting straight to the chase from just released Dudley comments:"we cannot lose sight of the fact that the economy still faces significant headwinds and that there are some meaningful downside risks... To sum up, the incoming data on the U.S. economy has been a bit more upbeat of late, suggesting that the recovery may be getting better established.  But, while these developments are certainly encouraging, it is far too soon to conclude that we are out of the woods in terms of generating a strong, sustainable recovery.  On the inflation front, the year-over-year rate of consumer price inflation has slowed in recent months, and despite the recent rise of gasoline prices, we expect inflation to moderate further in 2012." Translate: NEW QE is but a CTRL-P keystroke away now that all the inflation the Fed usually ignores continues to be ignored.

The European debt struggle may have just entered a new phase. Don’t blink. Like any classy magician’s trick the idea is to get you looking one place while the real action is going on somewhere else. And that has been the recipe over the past week or so. While everyone has been watching the Spanish and Portuguese debt auctions, the real damage was done in Germany where the German government’s bid-cover ratio on a ten-year bund auction came in less than ‘one.’  

In an attempt to not steal too much thunder from Gary Shilling's thought-provoking interview with Bloomberg TV, his view of the S&P 500 hitting 800, as operating earnings compress to $80 per share, is founded in more than just a perma-bear's perspective of the real state of the US economy. As he points out "The analysts have been cranking their numbers down. They started off north of 110 then 105. They are now 102. They are moving in my direction." The combination of a hard landing in China, a recession in Europe, and a stronger USD will weigh on earnings and inevitably the US consumer (who's recent spending spree has considerably outpaced income growth) with the end result a moderate recession in the US. The story is "there is nothing else except consumers that can really hype the U.S. economy" and that is supported by employment but last week's employment report throws cold water in that. "Consumers have a lot of reasons to save as opposed to spend. They need to rebuild their assets, save for retirement. A lot of reasons suggest that they should be saving to work down debt as opposed to going the other way, which they have done in recent months. So if consumers retrench, there is not really anything else in the U.S. economy that can hold things up." While the argument that the US is the best of a bad lot was summarily dismissed as Shilling prefers the 'best horse in the glue factory' analogy and does not believe investors will flock to US equities - instead preferring US Treasuries noting that "everyone has said, rates cannot go lower, they will go up, they will go up. They have been saying that for 30 years."

Last week we had the Fed's hawks line up one after another telling us how no more QE would ever happen. We ignored them because they are simply the bad cops to the Fed's good cop doves. Sure enough, here comes Bernanke's right hand man, or in this case woman, hinting that one can forget everything the hawkish stance, and that ZIRP may last not until 2014 but 2015! Which, by the way, is to be expected: since ZIRP can never expire, it will always be rolled to T+3 years, as the short end will never be allowed to rise, until the Fed has enough FRNs in circulation to absorb the surge in rates without crushing the principal, as explained yesterday.

What makes this time different? Several items:

1. The Crisis coming from Europe will be far, far larger in scope than anything the Fed has dealt with before.
2. The Fed is now politically toxic and cannot engage in aggressive monetary policy without experiencing severe political backlash (this is an election year).
3. The Fed’s resources are spent to the point that the only thing the Fed could do would be to announce an ENORMOUS monetary program which would cause a Crisis in of itself.

As North America comes to market, there is a lot to digest. European equity markets are trading higher, with the FTSE MIB in particular outperforming after a volatile morning’s session, with bargain-hunting the active theme among investors. The first major risk event came and went with the Italian T-Bill auction. Participants were looking for a poor auction due to the ongoing Eurozone woes, and although bid/covers fell short and yields did increase, the auction was not as poorly received as many had feared.  As such, Italian and Spanish 10-yr spreads have tightened with the German Bund, with the Spanish spread closing in on 400BPS, with talk of domestic buying in the periphery and profit-taking from the last few sessions adding to the tightening effect.  A flashpoint of the day was the German Bund auction; results came in showing the auction to be technically uncovered, failing to sell the expected EUR 5bln. Analysts have pinned the poor auction on the Bund having record low yields providing a disincentive to buy the German security. Following the minutes after the auction, around 25,000 contracts went through on the Bund, spiking lower around 20ticks.

In a few weeks the Treasury will most likely launch Floating Rate Notes. Will that be the signal to get out of Dodge? If history is any precedent, and especially the 1951 Accord... you bet.

But anyway, the big thing is liquidity right now, not whether or not you have a job. 

Here is a number for you: 70%  That is roughly how many economic reports have missed their mark in the last month.  Why is this important?  Believe it or not - It has a lot to do with the weather.   We have written many times recently about the weather related effects skewing the seasonal adjustment figures in everything from the leading indicators and retail sales to employment numbers.  Now those weather related boosts are beginning to run in reverse as weather patterns return to normal and realign with the seasonal adjustments. This resurgence of economic weakness is only just beginning to appear in the fabric of the various manufacturing reports.  The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (a broad measure of 85 different data points) has declined from its recent peak in December of .54 to .33 in January and -.09 in February.   The ISM Composite index (an average of manufacturing and non-manufacturing data), Richmond, Dallas and Kansas Fed Manufacturing indexes all posted declines in March.

I know, I know: the stock market will never go down because Ben Bernanke and the other central bankers won't let it. It's funny how the "Bernanke/European Central Bank Put" is ranked alongside gravity as a rule of Nature until markets roll over; then talk shifts from purring adulation of central bankers' godlike powers to panicky calls for another flood of liquidity/free money to "save" the market from the harsh reality of global recession. The crash test dummies know better: they've been called up for a humongous crash. The basic mechanism that is being overlooked is Liquidity Resistance. This is akin to insulin resistance, where insulin becomes less effective at lowering blood sugars. The amount of insulin required to maintain normal blood sugar levels increases as resistance rises until even massive doses of insulin no longer have the desired effect and the system crashes.

So far futures are broadly unchanged, following the release of a Chinese trade report which while showing a resumption in the trade surplus, on expectations of further trade deficit in March, showed it was primarily due to a slide in imports, not so much a rise up in exports, a fact which impacted the Aussie dollar subsequently. We already noted that in conjunction with the BOJ, this means that Asia's central banks will likely hold off on further easing, and defer to the Chairman, especially with food inflation in China still prevalent. Aside from that the traditional European weakness is back, where April Sentic Investors Confidence slid to -14.7 on expectations of -9.1: to be expected from a meaningless market-coincident indicator. Keep a close eye on PIIGS bonds where whack a mole is now firmly back as the LTRO benefit is long forgotten, 3 month half life and all that.

There is no free-lunch - especially if that lunch is liquidity-fueled - is how Gluskin-Sheff's David Rosenberg reminds us of the reality facing US markets this year and next. As (former Fed governor) Kevin Warsh noted in the WSJ "The 'fiscal cliff' in early 2013 - when government stimulus spending and tax relief are set to fall - is not misfortune. It is the inevitable result of policies that kick the can down the road." Between the jobs data and three months in a row of declining ISM orders/inventories it seems the key manufacturing sector of support for the economy may be quaking and add to that the deleveraging that is now recurring (consumer credit) and Rosenberg sees six rather sizable stumbling-blocks facing markets as we move forward. On this basis, the market as a whole is overpriced by more than 20%.

Last Friday saw the release of a below-expected US Non-Farm Payrolls figure, causing flight to safety in particularly thin markets, with equity futures spiking lower and US T-notes making significant gains. Data from this week so far in Asia has shown Chinese CPI is still accelerating, coming in above expectations at 3.6% against an expected 3.4% reading. Looking ahead in the session, there is very little in the way of data due to the reduced Easter session in the US and the European and UK markets closing for Easter Monday.