Savings Rate

Bernanke's recognition of his penalizing savers with low rates as an 'issue for people' sparked an interesting note from the WSJ on how sensible and stoic savers are being herded (unsafely) into risky investments. Bernanke's insistence that "our savers collectively have to hold all the assets of the economy and a strong economy produces much better returns in general" must be juxtaposed with comments from a money manager that "I don't think that's a fair-trade" for money intended to be invested safely. By removing the last shred of hope for a rise in savings rates anytime soon, the Fed is once again creating the potential for major unintended consequences as the 30% drop in interest income for US savers from the 2008 peak forces them to extend duration (TSYs), lower quality (corporate bonds), and/or increase leverage/risk (equities). One only has to look at Treasury yields, Muni yields, investment-grade bond yields, and now high-yield bond yields for how tempted investors (retail and professional 'insurance/pension' assets) have become to take their safest net worth asset (low risk liquidity) and expose it to the business/credit cycle and all its myriad event risks. While reducing the rate of savings might seem sensible for the short-term from the Fed perspective, it leaves a wholly unsustainable recovery (or bubble in who knows which asset class next) and as Nordea notes this week, based on their models, a considerably higher savings rate will be needed going forward (for any sustainability) even as 'saved money' is rotated into risk or spent on quality-of-life maintenance. Perhaps it is time for many to listen to the sensibilities of the WSJ's last (75 year-old) interviewee who notes "At my age, I can't be a risk-taker anymore" as maybe it is time to consider the reality of the recent good US data in relation to coinciding elements such as inventory build-up, plummeting household savings, and lower gas prices when adding to that risky investment.

A strong yen strikes again. 

The US economy grew at a 2.8% annualized pace in the supposedly blistering fourth quarter, yet the number was a disappointment not only in that it missed estimates of 3.0% (and far higher whisper numbers) but when one looks at the components, where a whopping 1.94% of the upside was attributable to a rise in inventories as restocking took place. And as everyone knows in this day and age a spike in inventories only leads to sub-cost dumping a few months later. In other words, the economy grew at a 0.8% pace ex inventories. Yet for all intents and purposes, this is considered "growth." Personal consumption was also weaker than expected coming in at 2.0% on estimates of 2.4%. Perhaps the only silver lining was Core PCE which came at 1.1% on expectations of 0.9%, however as discussed extensively before, this was driven by an unsustainable surge in credit-binge spending, primarily for iStore trinkets, and is hardly sustainable especially as the US Savings Rate fell to 3.7% in the fourth quarter, the lowest since Q4 2007. In other words Joe Sixpack is living large, especially since Joe Sixpack no longer has to pay his mortgage. Unfortunately this is a collision course with every economic principle and the next taxpayer funded bank bailout is only a matter of time. Bottom line: the artificial economic pick up is over and Q1 will see inventories actually detract from GDP: as a reminder Q1 2011 GDP subtracted 1.8% points from the final 0.4% GDP, and that was following only a 0.9% inventory rise in the preceding quarter, Q4 2010. And that is not even mentioning the tight fiscal situation no longer being a benefit to growth. Oh yes, and gas is no longer falling. And not to even mention that the GDP deflator mysteriously imploded from 2.6% to 0.4%: that's odd - not even edible ipads seem to be coming down in price. Which means that using a reslitic deflator would have resulted in virtually no GDP growth. To paraphrase Lester Burnham, "It's all downhill from here."

We have now entered the fifth year of this Fourth Turning Crisis. George Washington and his troops were barely holding on at Valley Forge during the fifth year of the American Revolution Fourth Turning. By year five of the Civil War Fourth Turning 700,000 Americans were dead, the South left in ruins, a President assassinated and a military victory attained that felt like defeat. By the fifth year of the Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning, FDR’s New Deal was in place and Adolf Hitler had been democratically elected and was formulating big plans for his Third Reich. The insight from prior Fourth Turnings that applies to 2012 is that things will not improve. They call it a Crisis because the risk of calamity is constant. There is zero percent chance that 2012 will result in a recovery and return to normalcy. Not one of the issues that caused our economic collapse has been solved. The “solutions” implemented since 2008 have exacerbated the problems of debt, civic decay and global disorder. The choices we make as a nation in 2012 will determine the future course of this Fourth Turning. If we fail in our duty, this Fourth Turning could go catastrophically wrong. I pray we choose wisely. Have a great 2012.

Whether it is strong-USD-based forward revenue reductions for US corporations, rear-view mirror-based fuel-cost implicit tax-cuts, or unsustainable savings rate reductions, the recent US data has created a plethora of 'this time is different' decoupling theorists. We discussed David Rosenberg's perspective on this unsustainability last week and now his old employer (Bank of America) is notably out with a rather negative note on the chances of this 'local' European problem becoming a global issue and impacting US growth through both trade and financial linkages. In their view, we will see a steady deceleration in growth this year while the consensus sees a pick up and by the spring these negative revisions (from sell-side economists) will weigh heavily on stock markets and support bonds. They sum it up succinctly: 'Enjoy the recent price action while it lasts.'

While the market continues to simply fret over when and where to start buying up risk in advance of inevitable printing by the US and European central banks, those of a slightly more contemplative constitution continue to wonder just what it is that has allowed the US to detach from the rest of the world for as long as it has - because decoupling, contrary to all hopes to the contrary, does not exist. And yet the lag has now endured for many more months than most thought possible. And making things even more complicated, the market which doesn't follow either the US nor European economy has decoupled from everything, breaking any traditional linkages when analyzing data, not to mention cause and effect. How does reconcile this ungodly mess? To help with the answer we turn to David Rosenberg who always seems to have the question on such topics. His answer - declining gas prices (kiss that goodbye with WTI at $103), and collapsing savings. What happens next: "in the absence of these dual effects — lower gas prices AND lower savings rates — we would have seen real PCE contract $125 billion or at a 3% annual rate since mid-2011 (looking at the monthly GDP estimates, there would have also been zero growth in the overall economy). Instead, real PCE managed to eke out a 2.7% annualized gain — but aided and abated by non-recurring items. Yes, employment growth has held up, but from an income standpoint, the advances in low paying retail and accommodation jobs have not compensated the losses in high paying financial sector and government employment." Indeed, one little noted tidbit in the monthly NFP data is that those who "find" jobs offset far better paying jobs in other sectors - as a simple example the carnage on Wall Street this year will be the worst since 2008. So quantity over quality, but when dealing with the government who cares. Finally, will the market continue to decouple from the HEADLINE driven economy, which in turn will decouple from everyone else? Not unless it can dodge many more bullets: "As was the case last year, the first quarter promises to be an interesting one from a macro standpoint. The U.S. economy has indeed been dodging bullets for a good year and a half now. It might not be October 26, 1881, but something tells me we have a gunfight at the O.K. Corral on our hands this quarter between Mr. Market and Mr. Data." Read on.

That Ray Dalio, famed head of the world's largest (and not one hit wonder unlike certain others) hedge fund has long been quite bearishly inclined has been no secret. For anyone who missed Dalio's must see interview (and transcript) with Charlie Rose we urge you to read this: "Dalio: "There Are No More Tools In The Tool Kit." For everyone who is too lazy to watch the whole thing, or read the transcript, the WSJ reminds us once again that going into 2012 Dalio's Bridgewater, which may as well rename itself Bearwater, has not changed its tune. In fact the CT hedge fund continues to see what we noted back in September is the greatest threat to the modern financial system: a debt overhang so large, at roughly $21 trillion, that one of 3 things will have to happen: a global debt restructuring/repudiation; global hyperinflation to inflate away this debt, or a one-time financial tax on all individuals amounting to roughly 30% of all wealth. That's pretty much it, at least according to mathematics. And according to Bridgewater. From the WSJ: "Bridgewater Associates has made big money for investors in recent years by staying bearish on much of the global economy. As the new year rings in, the hedge fund firm has no plans to change that gloomy view...What you have is a picture of broken economic systems that are operating on life support," Mr. Prince says. "We're in a secular deleveraging that will probably take 15 to 20 years to work through and we're just four years in." So basically scratch everything between 2012 and 2028? But, but, it was that paragon of investment insight Jim "Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept" O'Neill keeps telling us stocks will go up by 20%... stocks will go up by 20%....stocks will go up by 20%...

So much for ending the year on a positive economic tone: today's November durable goods number, while better than expected on a headline basis including volatile transportation data coming at 3.8% on expectations of 2.2%, was a big disappointment when looking at the core economic indicators such as Durables ex-transportation and non-defense capital goods orders ex-transportation, both of which missed, 0.3 vs 0.4% in the former case, and a whopping 11st devs for the latter: at -1.2% on expectations of 1.0% (Joe LaVorgna was +1.2%... of course), the worst since January 2011. Simply said the trend of downward GDP revisions is now coming to Q4 GDP which will likely see the consensus dip below 3.0%. While we are at it, why not stuff channels a little more: "Inventories of manufactured durable goods in November, up twenty three consecutive months, increased $2.0 billion or 0.6 percent to $368.8 billion. This was at the highest level since the series was first published on a NAICS basis and followed a 0.4 percent October increase. Transportation equipment, also up twenty three consecutive months, had the largest increase, $1.0 billion or 0.9 percent to $114.3 billion." And in other news, both consumer income (0.1%, exp 0.2%) and spending (0.1%, exp 0.3%) missed, pushing the savings rate lower again from an upward revised 3.6% in October to 3.5% in November. The reason consumers had to rely on their savings? "Private wage and salary disbursements decreased $7.1 billion in November, in contrast to an increase of $37.2 billion in October." And yet, "Government wage and salary disbursements increased $0.1 billion in November, the same increase as in October." But that's ok - for a slow motion economic trainwreck there is Obama and fudged labor data from the BLS; for everything else's there's Mastercard and soon to be unlimited lines of credit for everyone drawn straight from the Discount Window.

The economic data dump is here. In order of appearance, first we have jobless claims which rose from an upwardly revised (of course) 391,000 to 393,000, worse than expectations of 390,000. That is Seasonally Adjusted. Not Seasonally Adjusted claims exploded by 74,214: good thing nobody looks at the unfudged number. The bleeds from the 99 week cliff continued as a net of 7K people dropped from EUC and Extended Claims. Next we have durable goods which while on the surface were better than expected declining by just -0.7% on expectations of -1.2% (with the previous month revised massively lower from -0.8% to -1.5%), the orders ex volatile non-defense and air dropped by a whopping 1.8%, on expectations of -1.0%, and the revised September number collapsing from +2.4% to +0.9%. This means that not only will the final Q3 GDP be revised even lower, but that Q4 GDP rebound hopes have been all but dashed. Finally, in Personal Spending data, we learn that consumers spent less, with spending rising only 0.1% on expectations of 0.3%, while income increased (thank you Uncle Sam) from 0.1% to 0.4% on expectations of 0.3%. This was to be expected: after all the savings rate in September hit 3.3% - the lowest since August 2008. It had only one way to go, and so it did, with the October Savings Rate increasing to 3.5%. Expect this number to keep rising as consumer finally re-retrench yet again, in the process hitting the economy.

Wondering how it was possible for Q3 GDP to post such a substantial beat yesterday driven by a surge in Personal Consumption expenditures? Wonder no more: in the last quarter, the US consumer literally tapped out, bringing their savings rate from a 2011 high 5.3% in June to 3.6% in September, after the BEA reported that while spending increase was in line with expectations at an unsustainable 0.6%, income was just barely above unchanged at 0.1% on expectations of 0.3% confirming that as far as the economy is concerned, the consumer is just getting worse and worse off. This is the lowest number since the depression started back in December 2007! The only problem is back then it had been lower and was rising in anticipation of the fallout from the Great Financial Crisis, this time it was modestly higher and is now plunging. Very soon deleveraging Americans, whose homes are getting cheaper by the day, will have no savings left to use for useless trinket purchases. How does GDP "grow" then?

The August Personal Income and Spending report is out and while there were some modest surprises in the data, namely a drop in Personal Income of -0.1%, on expectations of an increase of 0.1% (and an adverse revision for July data from 0.3% to 0.1%) - the first drop in two years, while Personal Spending was in line with expectations at 0.2% (previous revised from 0.8% to 0.7%), the biggest news of the day is that the US consumer is getting tapped out, with spending coming entirely from savings: the savings rate dropped from a revised 4.8% (previously 5.0%), to 4.5%, the lowest since December 2009.

And another ugly economic data point. June personal income was just released at 0.1%, on expectations of 0.2%, and down from a revised 0.2% (previously 0.3%). Personal spending was far worse than expected, coming at -0.2%, down from a revised 0.1%, and missing expectations of 0.0%. PCE Core was the last metric missing, coming at 0.1%, down from 0.2%, down from a downwardly revised 0.2%. Just as importantly, as in the case of GDP, there were major downward historical revisions: "Personal income was revised up $69.1 billion, or 0.6 percent, for 2008; was revised down $244.7 billion, or 2.0 percent, for 2009; and was revised down $167.5 billion, or 1.3 percent, for 2010. .. For 2009, downward revisions to personal interest income, to personal dividend income, and to nonfarm proprietors’ income were partly offset by upward revisions to rental income of persons and to farm proprietors’ income.  For 2010, downward revisions to personal   interest income, to nonfarm proprietors’ income, to supplements to wages and salaries, and to personal current transfer receipts were partly offset by upward revisions to rental income of persons, to wages and salaries, and to farm proprietors’ income." In other words, the "rental income" that offset downward income revisions came exclusively from the $50-100 billion squatters' rent annually "generated" from homeowners not paying their mortgages. End result: a surge in the savings rate to 5.4% from 5.0%, the highest since March 2011, as consumers retrench across the board.

Not surprisingly, the personal household weakness continues into May, when both personal income and spending came lower than expected, the first printing at 0.3% on expectations of 0.4%, in line with a revised 0.3% in April, while spending printing coming unchanged in May on expectations of a 0.1% rise, down from a revised 0.3% in April. Most important was that the PCE deflator increased by the most since late 2009, surging from 2.2% to 2.5%, just as expected. Squatters rent component of income once again increased: "Rental income of persons increased $3.3 billion in May, compared with an increase of $2.9 billion in April." More importantly, "Private wage and salary disbursements increased $14.1 billion in May, compared with an increase of $26.4 billion in April." This in line with observed decline in tax withholdings by the government over the past several months. Net result, in May the savings rate increased modestly from 4.9% to 5.0%, much to the chagrin of spending advocates everywhere, as in addition to deleveraging, US consumers also saved more. And this is before the market flush in June...

Today's Personal Income and Outlays data confirmed that the plight of the US consumer is deteriorating: while Personal Income increased at a 0.4% M/M rate, in line with expectations and flat adjusted for inflation (under 0.1%), Spending missed consensus of 0.5%, instead rising at 0.4%, the same number as predicted by Goldman previously. What is notable is that the "rental income" which as was discussed previously is not remotely based on "rents" but to a big part comes from "squatters rent" or pseudo income as a result of not paying one's mortgage continues to have an increasingly mitigating impact, rising just $3.1 billion in April, following $8.4 billion in March. As expected, the economic "benefits" arising from those who don't pay their mortgage are starting to have an increasingly lesser impact. This is very bad news for the economy, as sooner or later those living rent and mortgage free (even in New York where the average foreclosure process takes 900 days, meaning  2.5 year of mortgage free living) will have to start paying for the roof over their head, which will have a massive impact on disposable income, and will result in a wipeout of one of the best performing sectors to date: consumer discretionary. Lastly, as expected, courtesy of a ramp in Spending in recent months, not offset by Income, the savings rate, which was at 4.9% in April, the same as March, is at the lowest level since October 2010. In other words, even as consumers continue to deleverage as presented in the latest Flow Of Funds report, they are still eating away at whatever savings they have.

March Personal Income comes at 0.5% on expectations of 0.4%, while spending is also 10 bps higher than consensus of 0.5% printing at 0.6%. Sizable prior revisions see February income of 0.3% revised to 0.4%, while spending was revised from 0.7% to 0.9. As a result the February savings rate we revised lower to 5.5%, which is where the March savings rate came as well. Not surprisingly, the "rental income" which as explained before is what is known as Squatters rent, continues to come in strong, increased by $8.7 in March (over $8.1 billion in February). Following some timing offsets in the tax code, Disposable personal income (DPI) -- personal income less personal current taxes -- increased $64.4 billion, or 0.6 percent, in March, compared with an increase of $49.6 billion, or 0.4 percent in February. The GDP critical PCE increased 0.4 percent in March, the same increase as in February. The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 0.1 percent in March, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in February.