Month: October 2019

Calibrating the Narrative

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October 27, 2019

by Steve Stofka

Mr. Z, the man himself, head of Facebook, showed up in Washington this week to testify before a House committee about privacy and money (C-Span, 2019). Congress is worried about Mark Zuckerberg’s desire to create a digital currency. Several committee members expressed their concern that a private company with a large global influence might wrest control of the world’s currency away from the American government.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution – the enumerated powers section – gave Congress the power “to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin.” The United States has a powerful influence on the international payments system because 52% of transfers are in U.S. dollars (SWIFT, n.d.). The U.S. does not want to give up that global control to Facebook.

As I listened to the exchange between members of Congress and Mr. Zuckerberg, I was reminded that money itself is a narrative. Who gets to dominate that narrative? China and other countries would prefer that U.S. politics did not control the global financial market. When the British controlled the world’s dominant currency, the pound, more than a century ago, the U.S. didn’t like the influence that British leaders had on American lives. The sun never set on the British empire. Now its the U.S. that operates the world’s merry-go-round and the tickets are priced in dollars.

In the digital age Google and Facebook control many of the social and financial exchanges between people around the world. The U.S. government is the 800-pound gorilla in the room and doesn’t like challenges of its dominance. As Facebook and Google get larger and more influential, they become the 600-pound gorillas, but with one important difference. They don’t have an army and a court system like the U.S. does. When Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren campaigns on breaking up the digital giants because of their monopoly power, those giants pay attention. There is a mood change in Washington that reminds me of the attacks on Microsoft in the 1990s.

We can expect that Facebook and Google will continue their heavy lobbying campaigns and trust in the paralysis of our system of government. The strength of that system lies in the checks and balances built into the Constitution. However, the past decade has shown that those same checks and balances stymie a lot of policy making in Washington. During the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, it was difficult to enact fiscal policy because that requires legislation which requires consensus, compromise and maturity. Not much of that left in Congress these days.

The chief response to the crisis was handled by a small group of central bankers at the Federal Reserve whose reach is limited by law. Its monetary tools are designed to work with and for banks. Because of that, Wall Street got bailed out during the crisis but not Main Street. Mr. Trump got elected partially on a promise to remedy that situation, particularly in rural America. He was the rainmaker, a billionaire who could get things done that no politician could. No person – even the President of the U.S. – has that much power. Despite the low employment numbers, many communities throughout America have not fully recovered. Mr. Trump’s performance has been theatrical, to say the least. His popular twitter barrage dominates the Washington narrative every day.

And that brings us back to that august body where Mr. Zuckerberg appeared this week. His motives are good, he assured the House committee. A third of the world’s population is unbanked, he noted. Facebook’s promotion of the digital currency Libra and its integration within the Facebook app can help. Calibra is not live yet but the web site will give you a taste of the future (Calibra, n.d.). Concerned about the attention from Congress, large financial institutions like PayPal, Visa and Mastercard have dropped out of the Calibra consortium. Or did Mr. Zuckerberg call it a partnership?

Every criminal organization around the globe is hoping that Mr. Zuckerberg will succeed. Moving $100 bills around is so inconvenient. Mr. Zuckerberg has a solution to help government track down criminal transactions and prevent the digital currency from being used for illegal activities. Law abiding citizens can stay anonymous. How will he accomplish this? It’s a secret. He will tell us soon – very soon.

Even though Calibra will be headquartered in Switzerland, Mr. Zuckerberg promised several times that Facebook will not go through with these digital currency plans until it meets all the concerns of U.S. regulators. There are a lot of regulatory agencies in the U.S. and that very plethora of regulatory bodies contributed to the financial crisis. Investment firms played off one agency against another until they found an agency they liked. Will Mr. Zuckerberg do the same?

Who will control this narrative? The big guns of the U.S. government or the billions of dollars of profit to be had by Facebook if it can scrape just a few pennies per transaction off the trillions of dollars traded around the world each year? My bet is on Mr. Zuckerberg. He is sometimes inartful, but he stumbled on a way into the lives of a few billion people around the world and he has quite artfully capitalized on that.

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Notes:

C-Span. (2019, October 23). Facebook CEO Testimony before House Financial Services Committee. [Web page, Video]. Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?465293-1/facebook-ceo-testimony-house-financial-services-committee

Calibra. (n.d.). A connected wallet for a connected world. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://calibra.com/

Public Domain. (n.d.) Obverse of United States one dollar bill, series 2009. [Image]. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23332139

SWIFT. (2015, December). Worldwide Currency Usage and Trends. [PDF]. Retrieved from https://www.swift.com/node/19186

Price Plateaus

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October 20, 2019

by Steve Stofka

Occasionally the stock market plateaus for six to nine months. The competing market sentiments – positive and negative – that cause a price plateau usually turn in one direction or another. Rarely does this leveling period last for twelve months or more. When those indecisive conditions don’t resolve for a year, what happens next?

Let’s begin by looking at shorter duration plateaus which occur more frequently. The market gets a bit too exuberant or conflicting economic signals make it more difficult to predict the future. Some investors read the data and reach for risk; others read the same tea leaves and opt for safety.

In 1999, near the peak of the dot-com fever, prices plateaued for seven months before going onto new highs in 2000 . Again, the market paused for much of the year.  It was the end of the huge bull market of the 1990s.

In the beginning of 2004, investor indecision caused a leveling of price action after market sentiment had turned positive in 2003. The dot-com bust, the 2001 recession, the 9-11 tragedy, and the Enron and accounting scandals had combined to cut stock values in half by the spring of 2003. Investor optimism following the tax cut package of 2003 suffered when employment gains in late 2003 turned erratic. Investors were wary. Would this be a double-dip recession like the early 1980s? 

A relaxation of financial regulations helped spur more residential investment and the market continued upward. The erratic gains in employment were attributed to seasonal volatility in the construction industry. Many factors contributed to the complex international financial environment that spurred a boom in housing. In 2007, investors began to question market evaluations and prices plateaued for six months.

Two recent price stalls lasting more than twelve months seem to buck the trend of shorter-term plateaus. That there have been two in less than five years is concerning. In mid-2014, oil prices began a steep decline. Lower commodity input prices helped the profits of the broad market but by early 2015, investors grew worried that this decline was a reaction to a broad economic downturn. For 18 months, prices leveled. As voters went to the polls in early November 2016, prices were the same as in February 2015. Some voters chose an inexperienced Donald Trump as an alternative to Clinton 3.0 or Obama 3.0.

Shortly after the passage of tax reform in December 2017, investor optimism hit a peak and it has barely surpassed that high since then. The optimism of this year’s gains has only balanced the pessimism and losses of last year’s final quarter. What will happen after this? I don’t know. Investors need to think like fighters who stay balanced on their feet because they don’t know where the next punch is coming from.

Minority Control

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October 13, 2019

by Steve Stofka

On September 15, 2008 the trading firm Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. A small number of outstanding shares traded on the stock market that day. The SP500 lost almost 5% of its value. New Yorkers gathered in Times Square to watch the ticker tape display. A small number of people controlled the direction of the market and constructed a reality that they sold to the rest of us.

In politics, a few key people control the direction and fate of legislation. In the Senate, the Majority Leader decides whether to bring legislation up for a vote. Even if a bill makes it out of a Senate committee, the Majority Leader can stop it from reaching the full Senate.  Unlike the Majority Leader in the House, his position is practically impregnable. Legislation vetoed by the President can be overridden by Congress. There is no recourse to a veto by the Senate Majority Leader.

The current holder of the position is Sen. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky. He is up again for re-election next year. When Democrats held the Senate, Sen. Harry Reid ruled with a similar disregard for others in his own party as well as the minority.

In 2014, 800,000 voters chose McConnell. In effect, less than 1% of the country’s voters control the course of legislation in the U.S. Did the founders of this country intend that one person should control Congress? James Madison, the chief crafter of the Constitution, worried that a majority would overwhelm and take advantage of a minority (Feldman, 2017). Accordingly, the Constitution is structured so that a minority controls power. However, one person is a very small minority. What would the founders think of the current arrangement in Congress? If Americans wanted a king with veto-proof power, America would still be a colony of Britain.

Our method of electing a President is a 230-year-old compromise between republicanism and democracy. An electoral college composed of men not subject to the passions of the crowd would elect the leader of the country. It was an Enlightenment model of dispassionate rationality.

Even if they had Fox News and CNN on Election night at the time of the founding, all the thirteen states were in the same Eastern time zone. At a recent symposium on our election, former RNC chair Michael Steele pointed out the west coast states are mostly taken out of the Presidential election (C-Span.org, 2019). By 5 P.M. Pacific time, they are discouraged from voting because much of the action has already been called. The founders did not design a system for four time zones.

We have 50 states but the election for President takes place in eight to twelve battleground states. Most polling is done at the national level, not in the battleground states. Many polls do not accurately survey the sentiments of the critical minority of voters in the states that will decide the election.

A minority of people own and control much of the wealth of the world. They now pay a lower percentage of their income than the bottom 50%. That includes federal, state and local taxes. In the Triumph of Injustice, due to be released next week, authors Saez and Zucman (2019) tally up the tax bills for the rich and ultra-rich. The book is #1 bestseller at Amazon and it hasn’t been published yet.

In 1980, the top 1% paid 47% of their income in total taxes at all levels. Now they are down to 23% and below the rate paid by the bottom half of incomes. Two sets of rules – one set for the peasants and one for the castle royalty. The Constitution prohibits the granting of titles so the rich granted themselves the titles. This book is sure to get a lot of media attention. Like we need more controversy.

Notes:

Feldman, N. (2017). Three Lives of James Madison: genius, partisan, president. [Print]. New York: Random House.

C-Span.org. (2019, October 7). National Popular Vote Election, Part 2. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?464997-2/national-popular-vote-election-part-2

Saez, E. & Zucman, G. (2019) Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. [Print]. Available for pre-order at https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Injustice-Rich-Dodge-Taxes/dp/1324002727

Effective tax rates: If you make $100,000 and you pay $25,000 in federal, social security, state, sales and property tax, then your total effective tax rate is 25%.

Photo: WyrdLight.com [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bodiam-castle-10My8-1197.jpg

Portfolio Performance & Presidents

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October 6, 2019

by Steve Stofka

The employment report released Friday was a Goldilocks gain of 136,000 jobs for the month of September. Why Goldilocks? Not as weak as some feared following news this week that manufacturing was getting hit hard in the trade war with China (Note #1). Not so strong that it ruled out the possibility of another rate cut from the Fed this year. Just weak enough to speculate on another rate cut by year’s end. After several days of big losses, the market rallied on Friday.

Although manufacturing has been contracting, a report on the rest of the economy was more encouraging, although a bit lackluster (Note #2). Service businesses are continuing to hire but the pace has slowed. New export orders have accelerated but new orders in total slowed significantly from August. Something to like, something not to like.

Billions of dollars around the world are traded as soon as the employment report is released each month. During Mr. Obama’s tenure private citizen Donald Trump accused Obama of fudging the employment numbers. Larry Kudlow, now Mr. Trump’s economic advisor, took him to task for that. Mr. Kudlow worked in the Reagan administration and knew well how sacrosanct the employment numbers were. The BLS is an independent agency working in the Department of Labor and its 2400 employees try to collect and publish the most accurate data it can accomplish. The agency’s Commissioner is the only political appointee in the BLS and once confirmed by the Senate, serves four years, the same as the head of the Federal Reserve (Note #3). According to Mr. Kudlow, the White House gets the number the night before only to prepare a press release when the report is released.

Mr. Trump’s reckless behavior helped him take out 16 other Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 election. He acts quickly and aggressively. That lack of caution has led to several bankruptcies, and because of that, no bank in the world will loan him money (Note #4). What if, on an impulse, Mr. Trump tweeted out the employment number shortly before its official release time? Some traders pay a lot of money so that the news will hit their trading desk a split second faster than a conventional news release. It’s that important. An early leak of the employment numbers would cost a lot of influential people big money around the world and would prompt a national if not a global crisis. Forget about the phone calls to foreign leaders to discredit Joe Biden. That would be an act of treason for sure – against the global financial community. Can’t happen? Won’t happen?

Mr. Trump knows no rules. His father protected him when his rash behavior got him into trouble as a child. The elder Trump sheltered Donald from his own mistakes in the real estate industry and his foolish foray into the Atlantic City gambling business. Now that Mr. Trump’s father is no longer there, he depends on others to protect him. He has enlisted a long line of people in that effort. They have come in the revolving door to the White House and left. The list is longer than I imagined (Note #5). John Bolton, the third National Security Advisor under Mr. Trump’s tenure, was the last high-profile team member to leave.

Mr. Trump has said that Americans would get tired of winning so much while he was President. To use a baseball analogy, when he takes the mound, the team doesn’t win very often. People who lose a lot either give up or blame everyone and everything else for their losses. They need to have an ideal environment or get lucky to win. Mr. Trump berates the independent Fed because he wants them to protect him. He needs every crutch he can get. He couldn’t succeed in a war or in the financial crisis because he is not disciplined or organized.

What does this mean for the average investor? Take a cautious approach and keep a balanced portfolio. Betting that Mr. Trump will pitch a good game is a poor bet.

Or is it? At an event on Friday, he claimed that the stock market has gone up 50% since he was elected. Not quite but it is up 42% since the day after he was elected (Note #6). It’s been about 35 months. That’s pretty good. A 60-40 stock-bond portfolio has gone up 30% in that time. Under Obama’s tenure the market only went up 27%. A balanced portfolio went up almost 40% and he had to deal with the worst recession since the Great Depression. The budget battles with Republicans put a big dampener on investor enthusiasm during Obama’s first term.

35 months after the Supreme Court awarded the presidency to George Bush, the market was down 25% but a balanced portfolio was up 21%. Even Mr. Clinton could not best Mr. Trump, although he comes close. 35 months after the 1992 election the market was up 38%. A balanced portfolio was up 40%. The winner? A balanced portfolio.

What might an investor expect? At today’s low interest rates and inflation, a break-even return might be 5% a year, for a total gain of 22% in four years. Will Mr. Trump’s first four years be one of his few wins? Check back in a year. It’s bound to be a tumultuous year.

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Notes:

  1. Institute for Supply Management (ISM). (2019, October 3). September 2019 Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.instituteforsupplymanagement.org/ISMReport/MfgROB.cfm
  2. Institute for Supply Management (ISM). (2019, October 3). September 2019 Non-Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.instituteforsupplymanagement.org/ISMReport/NonMfgROB.cfm?navItemNumber=28857&SSO=1
  3. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). About the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm
  4. Business Insider. (2019, August 28). The world is talking about Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-tax-returns-deutsche-bank-relationship-drawing-intense-scrutiny-2019-8-1028482268#why-it-matters2
  5. Wikipedia. (n.d.). List of Trump administration dismissals and resignations. [Web page]. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations
  6. Prices are SPY, the leading ETF that tracks the SP500. Clinton: 42 to 58 (approximately) – up 38%. Bush: 138 to 103 – down 25%. Obama: 91 to 116 – up 27%. Trump: 208 to 295 – up 42%. Balanced portfolio returns from Portfolio Visualizer calculated using a mix of 60% U.S. stock market, and 40% of an evenly balanced mix of intermediate term government and corporate bonds. Dividends were reinvested and the portfolio re-balanced annually.