Recession

Writing as someone who was strongly stock-oriented for most of a long investing career, I can assert that at today's low dividend yields, it is difficult to see stocks as strong trees on which to rely. The Smithers parameters provide cautionary evidence for the bulls who point to current "low" price-earnings ratios and "sunny skies almost forever" views of corporate profits and predict stock market returns well above bond yields for years to come.

The iconoclastic outcast being called in to shake things up a little. I'll appear on CNBC @2:30 with my outlook for 2012. I'm not shy about my track record & here's what I'll have to say.

If we had to summarize the Status Quo's confidence that no black swans will threaten its control in 2012, we might begin with its faith that the system's self-regulation will resolve all systemic challenges. Just as the Status Quo has placed all its chips on a single bet--that "growth" from debt-based consumption can be resumed with vast public borrowing and saving the predatory financial sector--it also bases its confidence on the system's self-regulation. If the banking sector is riddled with fraud and embezzlement, then some minor tweaking of regulation will solve all issues. If demand for debt has collapsed, then the solution is for the Federal Government to borrow 10% of GDP every year to compensate for the decline of private debt and spending. The faith is that extending and pretending will magically restore the "growth" the Status Quo needs to support its ballooning debt. Extending and pretending offers up the compelling illusion that the system's broken self-regulation is up to the task of fixing systemic problems. In the darkness overhead, we can hear the beating of unseen wings that promise to make a mockery of the Status Quo's supreme Imperial hubris.

As US markets remain in hibernation for a few more hours, Goldman picks out the five critical questions that need to be considered in the context of 2012's economic outlook. Jan Hatzius and his team ask and answer a veritable chart-fest of crucial items from whether US growth will pick up to above-trend (and remain 'decoupled' from Europe's downside drag), whether inflation will find its Goldilocks moment this year and if the US housing market will bottom in 2012 (this one is a stretch). Summarizing all of these in a final question, whether the Fed will ease further, the erudite economist continues to expect an expansion of LSAP (focused on Agency MBS) and an official re-adjustment to an inflation targeting environment. Their view remains that a nominal GDP target combined with more (larger) QE improves the chances of the Fed meeting its dual mandates (unemployment target?) over time but expectations for this radical shift remain predicated on considerably worse economic performance in the economy first (as they expect growth to disappoint). We feel the same way (worse is needed) and recall our recent (firstly here, then here and here) focus on the shift in the balance of power between the Fed and ECB balance sheets (forced Fed QE retaliation soon?).

Following today's release of European manufacturing PMI data we are sadly no closer to getting any resolution on which way the great US-European divergence will compress. Because all we learned is that, very much as expected, Europe managed to contract for a fifth month in a row, with the average PMI in Q4 2011 the weakest since Q2 2009, essentially guaranteeing a sharp recession once the manufacturing slow down spills over to GDP. The only silver lining was that the contraction across the continent was modesty better than expected, however if this merely means that the band aid is being pull off slowly and painfully instead of tearing it off is up for question.

Asking a gold trading firm's CEO if gold is in a bubble...

Yesterday, we breached the topic of the real decoupling that is going on: that between the macro and the micro (not some ridiculous geographic distribution of the US versus the world), by presenting David Rosenberg's thoughts on why Q4 GDP has peaked and why going forward it is energy prices that are likely to be a far greater drag on incremental growth than the preservation (not the addition as it is not incremental) of $10 per week in payroll taxes (which only affects those who are already employed), even as company earnings and profit margins have likely peaked. Today, following up on why the micro is about to return with a bang, and why fundamentals are about to become front and center all over again, albeit not in a good way, is, surprisingly, Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, who has issued his loudest warning again bleary eyed optimism for the next year: "Think of 2012 as the “payback” year….when many of the extraordinary things that happened over the past 3 years go in reverse. I am talking about incremental fiscal stimulus, a weaker US dollar, positive labor productivity, and accelerated capital spending." Said otherwise, 2012 is the year when everything that can go wrong in the micro arena, will go wrong. And this is why Morgan Stanley being bullish on the macro picture! As Wilson says, his pessimistic musing "tells the story for what to expect in 2012 assuming the situation in Europe doesn’t implode. In other words, this is not the macro bear case." If one adds a full blown European collapse to the mix, then the perfect storm of a macro and micro recoupling in a deleveraging vortex will prove everyone who believes that 2012 will be merely a groundhog year (in same including us) fatally wrong.

Only time will tell if ECRI or Wall Street has the brighter crystal ball.

While destroying the myths and biases of the plenitude of long-only talking-heads seems to have been the mission of Mr.Market for the last decade or so, Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI does an excellent job of dismissing the coincident indicator trees for the leading indicators forest in an interview with Bloomberg TV. His 'recession is happening' call from September 30 still stands, proving he does not flip flop like all other so called experts on every up or downtick in the SPY, and is expecting a formal recessionary print in GDP within three quarters, though noting that the recession very likely did not start in Q3. The constant clamoring of the consensus that we will 'muddle through' or that we are firming in hopes we repeat the Keynesian love-fest of 2009 (which he rejects as nothing being indicative of this at all) is eschewed as the man-with-the-best-name-for-anagrams-in-finance gives Tom Keene a little history lesson on the foibles of minute-by-minute coincident (or short-leading) macro data watching (and prognosticating). The ongoing deterioration in the ECRI index (and leading indicators) combined with his noting that GDP tends to revise/revert towards GDI (even though the two should be the same given their either-side-of-the-same-coin nature) and the previous GDI print was much weaker. He ends on a less than optimistic note pointing out that the pace of each economic recovery since the 1970s has been getting lower and lower and cycle volatility has increased helping to confirm his recession-is-happening call.

In case you haven't noticed, the rest of the world continues to slow down and the negative data is accelerating. The big powerhouses of the world, the eurozone including Germany, Japan, and China are leading this trend and there is no reason to believe that the U.S. will not follow.

I've been writing about this theme frequently lately because, while we are seeing some positive numbers here in the U.S., we are also seeing signs of weakness starting to show up, and since we live in a world of international trade, the world's woes will hit us.

Richard Koo thinks Europe needs to announce QE

The ECB may soon have to change its policy of keeping a 1.00% rate floor if JPM is correct.In a note just released by JPM's Greg Fuzesi, the JPM analysts says that "with the Euro area economy entering a potentially deep recession, we now think that the ECB will cut its main policy interest rate to just 0.5% by mid-2012. We expect the interest rate corridor to be narrowed to +/-25bp, so that the deposit facility rate will be 0.25%. We recognise that the ECB did not cut rates below 1% during the 2008/9 recession. It never fully explained why it did not, but we think that the two most likely reasons will be less important this time." And when the ECB does cut which it will have no choice considering Germany's stern reluctance to allow it to print outright, Hugh Hendry will make some serious cash. As a reminder, 'He’s made bets that he says will deliver a 40-to-1 return if the ECB cuts rates below 1% next year." Lastly, and as fully expected, the EURUSD is tumbling on the news.

Something tells us that Mohamed El-Erian is aware of the bulls' last bastion of "growth" and "decoupling"- the dip in Initial Claims below 400K. Even so, his appearance on Bloomberg TV was full of sound and fury, and some quite memorable soundbites, starting with this one: "Let me tell ou what I find most terrifying: we’re having this discussion about a risk of recession at a time when unemployment is already too high, at a time when a quarter of homeowners are underwater on their mortgages, at a time when the fiscal deficit is 9%, a time when interest rates are at zero. These are all conditions coming out of a recession, not going into a recession." The Newport Beach dweller is spot on: the situation is getting worse by the day, and the only option left is to do more of what has already failed so many times, and which only makes non-dilutable transitory monetary equivalents that much more attractive (with the mandatory liquidation which may bring them to triple digits first of course).

A global recession seems unavoidable now...

This update out of Goldman's Dirk Schumacher is probably not good news for anyone who believes that a high EURUSD, contrary to conventional wisdom, is a good thing for Europe. "German Q3 GDP: a last hurrah before the recession. The statistical office will release third quarter GDP figures tomorrow morning and we expect a quarterly increase of +0.3% after +0.1%; BBG consensus is +0.4%qoq. The risks of this forecast are to the upside and the strong industrial production figure as well as the robust trade figures would argue for a stronger quarterly growth figure. We see, however, a good chance for an upward revision of the disappointingly low Q2 figure (+0.1%qoq), implying a higher starting level for GDP in Q3 and therefore a somewhat smaller increase in Q3. In any case, the latest monthly figures, in particular business sentiment, point to a clear loss of momentum during the quarter and we think that the German economy has slid into recession in Q4. Whether this will be major recession or not will obviously depend on several factors not least the question whether some stabilisation in peripheral sovereign debt markets can be achieved or not. One factor that points to moderate recession is the on-going relative favourable funding conditions for German banks and corporate (see chart)." In other words: a "soft recessionary landing" - those predictions always work out just fine.