Category: personal income

Decline of Income Growth

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January 13, 2019

by Steve Stofka

On the week before Christmas, the stock market fell more than 7%. I wrote about the historical trends following previous falls of that magnitude. The week opened on Dec. 17th with the SP500 index. Two months was the shortest recovery period after 7% falls in 1986 and 1989. In a previous budget showdown in 2011, the market recovered after five months, but shutdowns are just one component of a complex economic environment. If the outlook for corporate profits looks positive, the market will pause during a long showdown, as it did in October 2013.

Investors wanting to contribute to their retirement plans can do so in a measured manner. The uncertainties that produce tumultuous markets take some time to resolve. Although the market rose for five straight days in a row this week, it was not able to reach that opening level of 2600 three weeks ago.

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Let’s turn to a persistent problem: the lack of income growth. Beginning in the early 1970s, the annual growth rate in real personal income began to decline (Note #1). I calculated ten-year averages of annual growth to get the chart below. 5% annual inflation-adjusted growth during the 1960s became 3% growth during the 1980s and early 1990s. The dot-com and housing booms of the late 1990s and early 2000s kicked growth higher to 3.5%. In 2008, annual growth (not averaged over ten years) went negative and reached as low as -4.9% in May 2009. Following the Financial Crisis, the ten year average is stuck at 2% growth.

rpigrowth

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks total employee compensation costs, including benefits and government mandated taxes (Note #2). I compared ten-year averages of both series, income with (blue line) and without (orange line) benefits. The trend over five decades is down, as before. When the labor market is tight, employers have to offer better benefit packages and the growth in total compensation is higher than income without benefits. When there is slack in the market, employees will accept what they can get, and the growth of total compensation is less.

incgrowthcomp

Beginning in early 2008, we see the dramatic effect of the last recession and the financial crisis. Income growth went negative, but income with benefits plunged 19% by January 2009. With unemployment stubbornly high, employers could attract employees with rather skimpy benefit packages. The ten-year average growth of income with benefits (blue line) sank to 1%, a full percent below income without benefits. In the last two years, the two series are starting to converge but the trend is below 2% growth.

The data contradicts those who claim that income growth is low because employers are spending more in benefits.

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Notes:
1. Real personal income series at Federal Reserve. An explanation of various types of personal income at Federal Reserve
2. Fed Reserve Series PRS85006062 Less PCEPI Chain Type Inflation Index.

The Un-Crash

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February 18, 2018

by Steve Stofka

The stock market did not go down 4% this past Wednesday.  It could have. The annual inflation reading for January was above expectations and confirmed fears that inflation forces are heating up. January’s retail sales report was also released Wednesday. It showed the second weakest annual increase in the past two years. If consumers are moderating their spending a bit, that would counteract inflation pressures.  Instead of dropping 2 – 4% on Valentine’s day, the SP500 went up 2.7%.

The labor report and the retail sales report each month have a significant sway on the market’s mood because they measure how much people are working and getting paid, and how much they are spending.

On a long-term basis, I think (and hope) that consumers will remain relatively cautious in their use of credit. Families today carry a higher debt burden relative to their income. By 2004, household debt levels had surpassed their annual level of income. As housing prices continued to rise, many families overextended themselves further and paid a horrible price when jobs and housing prices declined during the recession.

Families during the 1960s and 1970s carried far less debt relative to their income. People saved their income and bought many items when they could afford it. High inflation in the late 1970s and more relaxed lending standards in the 1980s helped cause a shift in thinking. Why wait? Charge it. Businesses learned that consumers are more likely to spend plastic money than real money. Consumers were encouraged to take another credit card. Buy that new car. Your family deserves it. We have a good interest rate for you.

Following the recession, families have kept the ratio of debt to income at a steady level, so that their debt is slightly below the level of their annual income. Prudent consumers will help keep inflation in check.  Here’s a chart of the debt to income ratio.  See how low it was during the decades after World War 2.

BuyingPower

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Housing

In the past year, tenant groups in California have been lobbying to loosen rent control laws in that state. You can read about it here (Sacramento Bee). To illustrate the economic pressures on many middle-class California residents, I’ll show you a few graphs. The first one is per capita income in six cities. All of them are above the national average. San Francisco and New York top the income list, followed by Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas.

PerCapIncomeMSA

Now I’ll divide these income figures by an index of housing costs, the largest expense in most household budgets. In the past few years Chicago has edged into the top spot.  San Francisco is still in the top 3, but has shifted downward as housing costs have climbed.  The housing adjusted income of Los Angeles has dropped even further below the national average.

PerCapitaIncomeHousingMSA

Feeling the fatigue of keeping up with escalating costs, some Angelenos are reaching out to their local politicians for help. Some have thrown up their hands and left the state.

Free Stuff

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January 21, 2018

by Steve Stofka

I like the 21st century. I get a lot of free stuff. Opinions, news and information, and directions to anywhere on the planet. Free apps and games for my phone. Free porno and free sermons.

I get so much free stuff that I can afford to pay for fancy coffee and smart phones, television and internet access. I can now afford a personal guru to align my chakras. My personal assistant, Alexa, listens to me and answers my questions.

Goodbye and good riddance to the 20th century with its clunky records, cassettes and DVDs. I say “Alexa, play me blankety-blank song,” and millions of tiny electrons do my bidding, and out comes my song!

My real personal income has doubled since 1973 (Average per capita income ) so I got all this extra free money. I’m getting paid more at work than 45 years ago. My total compensation has gone up 44% (Total real compensation per employee ). My employer provided benefits have doubled (Real employee benefits ). My employer kicks in more free money into my retirement program, and into my health care insurance. That’s real dollars, after inflation.

I got so much extra free money coming in that I’m living like royalty. My income has gone up 100% in 45 years, but my spending has increased 137% because I’m a first class 21st century person that banks want to loan money to.

Outlays1973-2017

Since 2000, I eat out a lot more – like 75% more (Real restaurant sales ). I deserve it cause I’m making all this extra money and I’m too busy to cook. In 2000, I was spending $11.50 a day for shelter but I needed more personal room and modern conveniences. Now I got more room but I’m spending $16 a day.

HousingCostRealPerCap2000-2017

Living first class means that I’m saving a lot less of my free extra money.  45 years ago, I was saving 12% of my income.  Now it’s 3%. But there’s an easy fix to that. More free stuff!
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Farming Communities

This past summer, my wife and I joined the many thousands of solar eclipse watchers who visited western Nebraska, where the totality and length of the eclipse was near its peak.  At hotels, shops and restaurants we were greeted with a cordiality that is typical of Nebraskans.  They worked extra hours to accommodate the influx of visitors. At one restaurant, our waitress remarked that the extra business would make up for the slack earlier in the year.  The reason?  Not the food and service, which were both excellent. The locals weren’t eating out as much. And why was that?

Last week, I wrote about the seven-year downturn in commodity prices that has affected many rural communities.  Although agriculture contributes about 6% to GDP (USDA) the changing fortunes of the people who produce our food gets little attention in urban areas.

A few hundred miles away, Denver is booming.  Gentrification and rising housing costs have stressed the pocketbooks of some families.  In Nebraska, it is declining prices that have caused stress fractures in the community (Denver Post ). Land values declined 4% in 2015, and another 9% in 2016 (U. of Nebraska-Lincoln report).

Despite a strong export market for corn, soybeans and other agricultural products, Iowa has had falling land prices for three years. In a recent survey, 40% of responding Iowa farmers reported lower sales in 2017.  However, there was a slight uptick in land values this past year and the hope is that the Iowa agricultural community may be turning a corner.

As land values decline, banks lower lending limits, refinancing terms become more strict.  Families sit at the kitchen table and try to pay higher bills with less money.  Property taxes decline so that there is less money for schools and other public infrastructure.  Seeing the stress that their parents face, younger folks are attracted to urban areas where there is more economic opportunity.  Farms that have been in the family for several generations get sold to large farm management companies.

The governors of western states must understand that they serve all the people of their state.  As people concentrate in the urban centers, they demand more resources from the state.  Those in rural areas feel as though they are being left out.  They will form elective coalitions within state legislatures to offset the growing urban power.

To those in the dense population centers of the coastal states, the shifting political and economic alliances in the fly-over states might earn a shrug.  Our federalist system of voting was a grand bargain to offset the dominance of high population states.  The 2016 election was a good lesson in the power of electoral federalism.  State and federal politicians must build a bridge that crosses the divide between the fortunes of those in urban and rural areas.

A Pause On the Road

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August 30, 2015

For the past few weeks, the volatility in the stock market has been front and center.  I finished last week’s blog with a note that the market would be conducting a vote of confidence in the coming weeks.  In the opening minutes last Monday morning, the Dow Jones index dropped a 1000 points, almost 6%.  No doubt many investors had spent the weekend worrying and put their sell orders in the night before.  By Friday’s close, however, the SP500 had gained almost 1% for the week.

A few weeks ago the Dow Jones index, composed of just 30 large company stocks, marked a death cross. The death cross is the crossing of the 50 day price average below the 200 day average.  See last week’s blog if you are unfamiliar with this.  This week the broader SP500 index, composed of the largest 500 U.S. companies, marked it’s own death cross.

Two weeks ago, I noted the attitude of one Wall St. Journal reporter to the dreaded death cross. In one word: blarney.  In two words: hocus-pocus.  So why do some investors and the press give this any attention?  Used as a trading system in the broader SP500 the death cross (sell) and it’s companion golden cross (buy) signal have produced a winning trade 4 out of 5 times.  Where do I sign up?, you might be thinking.  In an almost sixty year period of the SP500, however, the extra annual return is slight – about  8/100ths of a percent, or 8 basis points  – over no timing strategy, i.e. buy and hold.  To the average small investor, taxes and other fees more than offset this negligible advantage.

In contrast to any technical stock market price indicators, the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are mostly strong or expanding. Consumer Confidence rose above 100 this past month, surpassing the optimism of the benchmark set in 1985.  The second estimate of GDP growth released this past week was above some of the high estimates.  After inflation, real GDP growth continues at 2.65%.

Corporate profits are growing at 7.3%, home prices are up 5%.  Real, or inflation-adjusted, consumption spending and income is  growing at more than 3%, equaling the heights of pre-recession spending and income growth in early 2007.

Housing prices are increasing for a good reason.  Inventory of homes for sales is relatively low.  In the middle of the 2000s, prices rose even though inventory of homes for sale were going up, a sign of a speculative bubble.  Ah, things look so clear in the rear view mirror.

New jobless claims remain at historically low levels and job growth has been consistently solid.  There are more involuntary part-timers than we would like to see and the participation rate is low.  Gloom and doomers will tend to focus on the relatively few negative points in an otherwise optimistic economic panorama.  Gloom and doomers think that those who disregard  negative signs are Pollyannas.  Eventually, years later, the gloom and doomers are right.  “My timing was off but, see, I was right!” they exclaim. The lesson of the death cross and the golden cross are this: a person can be right most of the time.  The secret to successful investing is knowing when we are wrong and acting on it.

For the individual investor, signals like the death cross can be calls to check our assets and needs.  Older investors may depend on some stability in their portfolio’s equity value for income, selling some equities every quarter to generate some cash.   Financial advisors will often recommend that these investors keep two to five years of income in liquid, low volatility investments.  These include cash, savings accounts, and short to medium term corporate bonds and Treasuries.  Younger investors may see this price correction as an opportunity to put some cash to work.

Merry Christmas

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December 21, 2014

In preparation for today’s solstice, the market partied on in a week long saturnalia.  The week started off on a positive note.  Industrial production increased 1.3% in November, gaining more than 5% over November of 2013.

Capacity utilization of factories broke above 80%, a sign of strong production.  Production takes energy.  I’ll come to the energy part in a bit.

The Housing Market Index remained strong at 57, indicating that builders remain confident.  Tuesday’s report of Housing Starts was a bit of a head scratcher.  After a strong October, single family starts fell almost 6%.  Multi-family starts fell almost 10% in October, then rebounded almost 7% in November.  Combined housing starts fell 7% from November 2013.

The market continued to react to the change in oil prices.  For the big picture, let’s go back a few years and compare the SP500 (SPY) to an oil commodity index (USO).  For the past five years, USO has traded in a range of $30 to $40, a cyclical pattern typical of a commodity.  In October, the oil index broke below the lower point of that trading range.

On Tuesday, oil seemed to have found a bottom in the high $50 range.  USO found a floor at $21, about a third below its five year trading range.  Beaten down for the past three weeks, energy stocks began to show some life (see note below).

Encouraging economic news helped lift investor sentiment on Tuesday morning. Some bearish investors who had shorted the market went long to close out their short positions. Growth in China was slowing down, Japan was in recession, much of Europe was at stall speed if not recession and the continued strength of the U.S. dollar was making emerging markets more frail.  While the rest of the world was going to hell in a hand basket, the U.S. economy was getting stronger.  Thee Open Market Committee at the Federal Reserve, FOMC, began its two day meeting and traders began to worry that the committee might react to the strengthening U.S. economy with the hint at an interest rate increase in the spring of 2015.  This helped sent the market down about 2% by Tuesday’s close.

Wednesday’s report on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was heartening.  Falling gas prices were responsible for a .3% fall in the index in November, lowering inflation pressures on the Fed’s decision making about the timing of interest rate hikes.  The core CPI, which excludes the more volatile energy and food prices, had risen 1.7% over the past year, slightly below the Fed’s 2% target inflation rate.  Traders piled back into the market on Wednesday ahead of the Fed announcement Wednesday afternoon.  Back and forth, up and down, is the typical behavior when investors are uncertain about the short term direction of both interest rates and economic growth.

The Fed’s announcement that they would almost certainly leave interest rates alone till mid-2015 gave a further 1% boost upwards on Wednesday afternoon.  Twelve hours later, the German market opened  up at 3 A.M. New York time.  Early Thursday morning, the price of SP500 futures began to climb, indicating that European investors were reacting to the Fed’s decision by putting their money in the U.S. stock market.  Those of you living in the mountain and pacific time zones of the U.S. might have caught the news on Bloomberg TV before going to bed.  Maybe you got your buy orders in before brushing your teeth and putting your nightgown on. Very difficult for an individual to compete in a global market on a 24 hour time frame.  On Thursday, the market rose up as high as 5% above Wednesday’s close, before falling back to a 2.5% gain.

Still, a word of caution.  Both long term Treasuries, TLT, and the SP500, SPY, have been rising since October 2013.

As long as inflation remains low and the Fed continues its zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), long term Treasuries and stocks will remain attractive.   Something has to break eventually.  ZIRP  helps recovery from the aftermath of the last crisis but helps create the next crisis.  Abnormally low interest rates over an extended period are bad for the long term stability of both the markets and the economy.

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Sale – Energy Stocks – Limited Time Only

(Note: this was sent out to a reader this past Tuesday.  Energy stocks popped up 4 – 5% the following day, a bit more of rebound than I expected. The week’s gain was almost 9% and the ETF closed above its 200 week average.)

As oil continues its downward slide, the prices of energy stocks sink.  XLE, a widely traded ETF that tracks energy stocks,  has dropped below the 200 week (four years!) average.  (A Vanguard ETF equivalent is VDE).  Historically, this has been a good buying opportunity. In the market meltdown of October 2008, this ETF crashed through the 200 week average.  A year later, the stock was up 38% and paid an additional 2% dividend to boot.  Let’s go further back in time to highlight the uncertainty in any strategy. The 2000 – 2003 downturn in the market was particularly notable because it took almost three years for the market to hit bottom before rising up again.  The 2007 – 2009 decline was more severe but took only 18 months. In June 2002, XLE sank below its 200 week average.  A year later, the stock had neither gained nor lost value. While this is not a sure fire strategy – nothing is – an investor  is more likely to enjoy some gains by buying at these lows.

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Emerging Markets Stocks

Also selling below the 200 week average are emerging market (EM) stocks.  These include the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as well as other countries like Mexico, Vietnam, Turkey, Indonesia and the Philipines. When a basket of stocks is trading below its four year average, there are usually a number of good reasons. Several money managers note the negatives  for EM.   Also included are a few voices of cautious optimism.  Sometimes the best time to buy is when everyone is pretty sure that this is not the right time to buy.  Another blog author recounts two strategies for emerging markets: a long term ten year horizon and a short term watchful stance.  The long term investor would take advantage of the low price and the prospect for higher growth rates in emerging economies.  The short term investor should be cognizant of the fickleness of capital flows into and out of these countries and be ready to pull the sell trigger if those flows reverse in the coming months.

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Welfare

What are the characteristics of TANF families?  When the traditional welfare program was revised in the 1990s, lawmakers coined a new name, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, to more accurately describe the program.  The old term carried a lot of negative connotations as well. Two years ago Health and Human Services (HHS) published their analysis of a sample of 300,000 recipients of TANF income in 2010.  Although the recession had officially ended in 2009, the unemployment rate in 2010 was still very high, above 9%.  It is less than 6% today.

There were 4.3 million recipients, three-quarters of them children, about 1.4% of the population. By household, the percentage was also the same 1.4% (1.8 million families out of 132 million households).  In 2013, the number of recipients had dropped to 4.0 million, the number of families to 1.7 million (Congressional Research Service)

In 2010, average non-TANF income was $720 per month, or about $170 a week.  To put this in perspective, this was about the average daily wage at that time The average monthly income from TANF averaged $392. Recipients were split evenly across race or ethnic background: 32% were white, 32% black, and 30% Hispanic. For adult recipients only, 37% were white, 33% black, and 24% Hispanic.

Rather surprising was how concentrated the recipients were. 31% of all TANF recipients in 2010 lived in California.  43.3% of all recipients lived in either New York, California or Ohio.  The three states have 22% of the U.S. population and almost 44% of TANF cases.

HHS data refutes the notion that welfare families are big.  50% of TANF families had only one child.  Less than 8% of TANF families had more than 3 children.  82% of TANF families also receive SNAP benefits averaging $378 per month.

In 2014, Federal and State spending on the TANF program was less than $30 billion, about 1/2% of the $6 trillion dollars in total government spending.  The Federal government spends a greater percentage on foreign aid (1%) than the TANF program. Yet people consistently overestimate the percentage of spending on both programs (Washington Post article).  The average estimate for foreign aid? A whopping 28%.  Cynical politicians take advantage of these public misperceptions.

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Omnibus

Aiming to overhaul the health care insurance programs throughout the country, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a big bill.  No, it wasn’t 2700 pages as often quoted by those who didn’t like it.  The final, or Reconciled, version of the bill was “only” 900 pages.  The House and Senate versions were also about 900 pages each; hence, the 2700 pages.

At 1600 pages in its final form, the recently passed Omnibus Spending bill makes the ACA look like a pamphlet.  As  specified in the Constitution, all spending bills originate in the House.  Past procedure has been to pass a series of 12 spending bills.  Majority leader John Boehner has found it difficult to get his fractious members to agree on anything in this Congress so all 12 bills were crammed into this behemoth bill just in time to avoid a government shutdown.  Just as with the ACA, most members of the House and Senate did not have adequate time to digest the details of the bill.  The bill is sure to hold many surprises for those who signed it and we, the people, who must live under the farcical law-making of this Congress.  Here is a primer on the budget and spending process.

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Home Appraisals

They’re back!  A review of 200,000 mortgages between 2011 and 2014 showed that 14% of homes had “generous” appraisals, inflating the value of the home by 20% or more.  Loan officers and real estate agents are putting increasing pressure on appraisers to adjust values upwards.

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Personal Income

You may have read that household income has been rather stagnant for the past ten years or more.  In the past fifty years household formation has increased 78%, far more than the 50% increase in population.  The nation’s total income is thus divided by more households, skewing the per household figure lower.  During the past thirty years, per person income has actually grown 1.7% above inflation each year.  Inflation adjusted income is now 66% higher than what it was in 1985.

In 2013, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released median income data for the past two decades. Median is the middle; half were higher; half were lower.  This is the actual dollars not adjusted for inflation.  Except for the recession around the time of 9-11 and the great recession of 2008 – 2009, incomes have risen steadily.

The 3.7% yearly growth in median incomes has outpaced inflation by almost 25%.

Why then does household income get more attention?  A superficial review of household data paints a negative picture of the American economy. Negative news in general tugs at our eyeballs, gets our attention.  The majority of the evening news is devoted to negative news for a reason. News providers sell advertising in some form or another.  They are in the business of capturing our attention, not providing a balanced summary of the news.  In addition, a story of stagnating incomes helps promote the agenda of some political groups.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!

The Flame of Fame

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On Monday, George finished a re-read of Nassim Taleb’s Fooled By Randomness, an examination of probability without the mathematics. Taleb wrote from the point of view of a market trader but the book contained apt lessons for many kinds of decision making.  Mabel went out with a few friends to see the movie Birdman.  She asked George if he wanted to go but he was happy to sit around and read.

Taleb told the story of a emerging market bond trader in the 1990s who made a quarter billion dollars for his firm by “buying on the dips.”  When the price of the bonds declined, the trader took a highly leveraged long position, betting that the price of the bonds would rally.  Each time they did.  The man became convinced that he knew this market well.  He believed in his own astute judgment.  Then came a dip with no subsequent rally.  Instead, prices continued to fall.  The trader had no stop loss set, a floor price where a trader closes his position to prevent further losses.  Instead the trader convinced his bosses at the firm that prices would soon rally.  He increased his position as prices fell further.  Eventually, prices fell so low that the firm, near bankruptcy, fired the trader and closed the position, losing almost 600 million.  George thought about that.  There had been one correction in April and May of 2012, a near correction in October and November of that same year.  Smaller dips had occurred in June and August of 2013, then in January, April and August of this year.  Finally, this month a 7% or so dip.  Like the bond trader in the 1990s, the winning strategy of the past few years had been to buy on these dips.  The subsequent rise in prices helped convince buyers that their particular view of the market, whether fundamental or technical, was a sound one.  Note to self, George thought, don’t confuse good luck with genius.

Earnings and sales reports would drive the market for a few days until Wednesday when the Fed was expected to end its bond buying program.  On Thursday, the first estimate of 3rd quarter GDP would be released.  After the close Monday, Amgen reported earnings that were 12% better than expected.  That would help set a positive mood for Tuesday’s open.

Tuesday’s gauge of consumer confidence from the Conference Board was almost 95, the highest since 2007.  Lower gasoline prices have put extra money in consumer pockets.  A 25% decrease in the price of gas ($4 – $3) puts about $800 in a consumer’s pocket, a “raise” of almost $20 a week.  The declining price of oil caused Chevron to revise its earnings guidance downward by 15-20% for 2014 and 2015 but that was not as bad as anticipated and the shares rose.

The Case Shiller index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas showed a 5.6% year over year gain, the lowest yearly gain in two years.  After almost a decade, the housing market seemed to be returning to more normal patterns of price appreciation.

On the whole, this earnings season seemed positive but the cautionary tone of Taleb’s book reminded George to stay watchful.  On Sunday, the European Banking Authority had released the results of their 2014 stress tests on more than 120 European banks. Approximately 20% had failed the test, most of them in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain. When a football game ends, fans leave their seats and move toward the exits in a loosely organized fashion.  When a larger bank or sovereign country seems to be in danger of failing or defaulting, investors rush toward the exits as though someone called “Fire!”  Still, George was feeling – well, vindicated – that he had seemed to catch this latest dip near the bottom.
 
The mild weather of late October continued.  In shorts and tee shirt, George raked leaves in the backyard on Wednesday morning.  Taking a break, he poured himself another cup of coffee, then glanced out the window overlooking the front yard.  “Oh, wow,” he muttered.  He went to the front door, commenting to Mabel as he opened it, “Must be a bad accident down the street.  There’s a Channel 3 van parked across the street.  I’m gonna check it out.”  If Mabel had a stopwatch, she would have clocked 14 seconds before George was rushing back inside, hurriedly closing the front door. “Geez,” he exclaimed.  “What’s wrong?” Mabel asked.  “Some woman from the TV station, she starts running across the street toward the house when she saw me!  She called my name, for Chrissake!”

George walked into the kitchen, then took up a position on the side of the fridge where he could look out the window onto the street without being seen.  “There’s some guy with a video camera with her!” He said, managing to fit anger, annoyance and exasperation into the tone of his voice.  Mabel got up from her chair, stood by the living room window, partly concealed by the drapes as she looked out at the street.  “What do you think they want, George?  Should we go out and talk to them?”  “No, that’s the problem.  I think that’s exactly what they want – to talk to us.  Weird!”  Mabel noticed that the rooftop mounted dish on the TV van had been raised up.  “I think they’re broadcasting, honey,” she told George in a loud whisper.  The woman outside stood on the sidewalk, her back to the house, gesturing, turning to the house, then turning back to the camera man who wielded a shoulder mounted video camera pointed at the woman and George and Mabel’s house.  “They wouldn’t come into our front yard, would they?” George wondered aloud. “Isn’t there some kinda law against that?”

Mabel switched channels from the weather to Channel 3. “Oh, no!  This is a live feed.” She turned up the volume.  The woman reporter standing out on their sidewalk was looking at Mabel from the TV screen. There seemed to be several seconds of delay so that George and Mabel could see the woman reporter gesturing on the front sidewalk, then seeing that same gesture shortly on the TV as though time had fractured.

Reliable source, the reporter said.   In advance of the mid-terms, President visited Liscombs, who have not demonstrated active role in politics for either party.  Speculation about election strategy in the hotly contested Senate and Governor’s races.  A man presumed to be Mr. Liscomb ran back into the house to avoid answering questions.  Supposedly independent political organizations spending a lot of money in Colorado.  Are the Liscombs bundlers for one of these organizations?  Just how independent are these organizations?  Why did the President visit this house, this couple?  Were campaign rules broken?

George had joined Mabel, standing beside her, staring dumbstruck at the TV.  “Are they saying we’re like some kind of political action group like the ones the Koch Brothers fund?” George asked Mabel.  “Oh, they’re not saying anything,” Mabel said with a touch of anger.  “They’re suggesting, provoking…” she stopped as the report concluded.  “Now here comes the tease before the commercial,” she said.  “More on the upcoming elections here in Colorado when we come back,” announced the lunchtime news host.  “You watch too much TV,” George kidded her.  “You’ve gotten hip to their tricks.”

Both of them turned to look outside the living room window.  The reporter now stood with the video tech near the rear of the van.  “I think they’re leaving,” George said.  “No, wait,” Mabel told him.  “The dish on the van is still elevated for upload.  Wait till they lower it.  Then we’ll know they’re leaving.”  “Where did you learn all this stuff?” George asked her.  “Remember when we had that knife fight at the school five years ago?” Mabel asked.  George nodded.  “Two kids went to the hospital.  The local stations covered it, of course.  Got to see the vans.  It’s amazing how much equipment they cram in a regular van.  There’s probably a third person in the van working all the computers and equipment.”

Eventually, the van pulled away from the curb.  George realized that he’d missed the announcement from the Fed on their bond buying program, switched channels to confirm that they had ended the program. Although the Fed had stopped adding to its balance sheet, it continued to hold a whopping $4.5 trillion in assets, the total of the past several years of printing money to support the economy as the country struggled to recover from the Great Recession.

The market closed at the about the same level as Tuesday.  Dreamworks, the studio that produced the How to Train Your Dragon movies,  reported better than expected earnings after the close, sending the stock up 5% in after hours trading.  Kraft also reported earnings slightly higher but the overall sales picture was tepid.  Samsung reported a huge 60% decline in profit, squeezed on the high end by Apple and under pressure from mid and low end competitors.  The giant insurer MetLife had a blow out quarter.  Visa reported better than expected earnings, sending the stock over 4% higher in after market trading.

If Thursday’s first estimate of 3rd quarter GDP growth had come in at 2.5%, below the consensus of 3%, the market could have dropped 2% or more, George thought.  Instead, the estimate was 3.5%.  The market opened up lower then climbed about 1% during the day.

In each earnings season, there are several stories.  One was Gilead Sciences, a small cap biotech firm, whose “killer app”  was a new hepatitis drug called Sovaldi. Gilead reported earnings of $1.79 for the past quarter.  This was about 10% above earlier guidance but in the crazy world of Wall St., investors had been expecting $1.92, a “whisper” earnings number based on anticipated higher sales of Sovaldi.  Instead, sales of the drug were 20% less than the previous quarter.  The stock dropped about 5% on Wednesday, before climbing to new highs on Thursday.  The stock had more than quadrupled since the beginning of 2012.

On Friday the market jumped 1% at the open.  Overnight, the Bank of Japan had announced a massive stimulus program to combat risks of deflation, the bugaboo of all modern economies.  If prices might be slightly lower next year, why buy this year?  As consumers postpone some purchases, the decline in sales leads to further price declines as companies compete more fiercely to get those fewer sales.  Japan’s core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, had risen above 1% in response to earlier stimulus programs but had now fallen in the past several months back toward 1%.

On the domestic front, personal income gains in September were positive, averaging about 2.4% annually and above inflation. Wages and salaries jumped .4%, double the overall income growth. Consumer spending remained tepid, declining to a 1.4% annual pace of growth.  Amazon had warned earlier that they expected the Christmas season to be subdued this year.  Some speculated that the low rate of inflation and consumer spending would further check any rise in interest rates before the middle of 2015 at the earliest.

The market closed just slightly above the level it had reached six weeks earlier.  George had to remind himself that it was just luck.  But he sure felt smart.  Then he noticed a disturbing sign, the dragonfly doji after a gap up, on the chart of SPY, the ETF that tracks the SP500 index. The doji are one of many candelestick patterns, a type of technical analysis that tries to understand the psychology of buyers and sellers in the market from price movements over one to three days. After a number of up days, such a pattern might signal that buying pressure has become exhausted. After reading Taleb’s book, George reminded himself once again to be skeptical of signals. The last dragonfly doji after a 1% gap up that George could find in the past few years occurred on April 28, 2012.  The market had turned down after that one, losing more than 10% over the following five weeks.  Of course, George could have missed some doji simply because the market had not turned after the occurrence of one.  As Taleb noted, our view of historical data suffers from hindsight bias, from knowing what happened after a particular event.  We can not see the future very well but it’s worse than that. We don’t see the past very well either.  George had laughed when he read that.

Next week was the first week of the month when several economic reports would capture the attention of investors.   The monthly labor report at the end of the week would get the most attention.  The ISM indexes of the manufacturing and service sectors would be closely watched for any signs of a slowdown.  The sluggish growth in Europe and the strong dollar would have a negative impact on exports, which would show up in the manufacturing index.  The CWPI, a composite of both of the ISM indexes, had probably peaked the previous month, and should be lower this month as a natural part of the cyclic pattern of the past several years.  Investors could react negatively though to this cyclic decline.  The VIX, the volatility indicator, had dropped into a more calm zone and below its 10 day average.

But investors had not abandoned the safety of long-term Treasuries.

If Republicans took control of the Senate in Tuesday’s election, the market would probably get a boost, George figured.  The results might not be known for days or weeks if there were recounts in some key senatorial races and that might drag the market down a bit in advance of the upcoming labor report.  Would the market go up or down?  George could definitely say yes!  He looked out the window Saturday afternoon and could tell the direction of one thing for sure – leaves.  They were calling to him, or was it his wife with a helpful reminder?

A Busy Week

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October 5, 2014

On Monday George and Mabel flew to Portland, Oregon so Mabel could attend a teacher conference in Eugene on the development of strategies and practices for online learning.  “How’d you get invited?  You’re retired,” George had asked a few months earlier.  Mabel had spent many years both as a teacher and high school principal.

“The conference is focused on post-secondary education, but Lorraine thought I would be interested and wangled me a spot.” Her friend Lorraine was a department chair at a local community college. “I might be able to give her some perspective from the high school level as these kids make the transition to college courses.”

They had to get up early to make the morning flight.  Retired people should only get up this early when they are having a colonoscopy, George thought.  After the conference, they planned to spend a few days on the Oregon coast, which they were both looking forward to.  They sat in the Denver airline terminal awaiting the boarding call.  George couldn’t understand most of what they said.  Millions of dollars to build an airport and the contractors seemed to have bought the cheapest speakers through somebody’s Uncle Harry who knows a guy who’s got a connection with some exporter in Malaysia. Airline service had become little more than a subway in the sky.  In fact, the speakers sounded just as bad as the ones used in New York subway cars.  “Gate 23, now pre-boarding …” came out of the speakers as “Ateleeteehoweeornayhinienegetcrispbeergoremekeens.” Passengers, please get in the metal tube, sit down and be quiet.  The metal tube will go up in the air and deposit you at your destination.  Transportation for the masses.  The future has turned out slightly different than the one imagined at the New York World’s Fair in 1964.

In Portland they rented a car and drove down to Eugene.  Settling down in their hotel room, George was pleasantly surprised to find they had good wi-fi reception.  The market had been up but had closed below Friday’s close, indicating that there was still more negative sentiment to come.  Personal income in August had gained 4.3% above the level of August 2013.

That bit of good news was offset somewhat by a report from the National Assn. of Realtors that year-over-year pending home sales were down a little bit more than 2% in August.  This confirmed last week’s housing reports and made it unlikely that tomorrow’s Case-Shiller report on home sales would have any positive surprises.

Tuesday morning, George slept in while Mabel got up early to go to the nearby conference at the University of Oregon.    He missed the free breakfast at the hotel but the woman at the reception desk pointed him to a nearby coffee shop that served egg croissants and a good cup of coffee. The sun broke out on the short walk to the coffee shop, brightening George’s mood.  Despite the mid-morning hour, a number of people sat in the coffee shop working on their laptops.  West coast time was three hours behind New York so half of the day’s trading had occurred before many Oregonians had started work.

The Case-Shiller home index showed that home prices in 20 metropolitan areas had declined for the third month in a row.  Year over year gains were still positive at 6.7% but the pace of growth was slowing. Last Friday’s Consumer Confidence survey from the U. of Michigan had been positive and rising.  A separate Confidence survey by the Conference Board was positive but showed a declining sentiment on worries about employment and income.

In the afternoon, he drove near the campus to meet Mabel.  The campus was an artist’s rendition of what a college was supposed to look like.  Shade trees dotted the grounds between the grand buildings of gray stone.  Lawns and bushes were clipped but didn’t look overly manicured.  The concrete walkways that led from one building to another were well maintained but showed the typical wear of traffic and a wet climate.  The ghosts of mankind’s great minds and talents would feel comfortable on these grounds and in these halls.

Mabel introduced George to several colleagues attending the conference.  Most attendees were teachers and administrators in their forties and fifties.  For 300 years, teachers and students had gathered in  a classroom in what was called face-to-face education.  Students prepared for class at home at various times outside of the classroom but the daily routine of classes centered the educational activity of the students.  Online learning was a new phase in distance learning, attempting to blend the broader educational training of traditional colleges and universities with the asynchronous methods of the correspondence schools of the past century.

On Wednesday came further confirmation that the growth in housing sales and construction was slowing.  Year-over-year construction spending had increased 5% but the growth had declined for 9 months.  George thought this was a fairly normal cycle but the market reacted negatively, dropping more than 1% by the end of the day.

European Central Bank head Mario Draghi announced that they would continue to keep interest rates low to help spur the non-existent growth or decline in many European countries.  The private payroll processor ADP reported job gains of 215,000, slightly above expectations.  The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) showed a slight decline from the robust growth of the previous month but overall a very positive report.

Wednesday evening after the conference had concluded, George and Mabel had dinner at a restaurant with two women who had attended the conference.  The conversation was lively, the food a bit pricey for the quality but George enjoyed the evening.  For the past two days he had encountered many young people, reminding him of his college days decades before.

“I’ve decided I want to be 20 years old again, only not as dumb and inexperienced,” George quipped. He remembered sagely pronouncing that Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, was about social classes that no longer existed in America and was irrelevant. Somehow he had survived his own poor judgment.  He did want to jump high in the air once again, twisting toward the basket and snapping a 3-point shot at the basketball net.  The losses in physical vitality were offset by the gains in sagacity, George hoped.

On Thursday, George and Mabel woke up early (again! two times in one week!) to drive out from Eugene to the Oregon Coast.  At the Oregon Dunes they walked through coastal rain forest, then dunes, then a less dense strip of rain forest, then beach and ocean. “I get smaller the more I walk,” he told Mabel.  “What do you mean?” she asked.  “We walk through places like this, they’re like landscapes, I guess you could call it, shaped by this wind around us, the ocean out there,  and underneath our feet the earth is shifting about.  It’s like we’re teeny tiny bacteria walking on the ridges of paint left by some artist’s brush.”

Mabel smiled, “Well put.”  She paused.  “With the physical classroom, students and teachers can have field trips out to the Oregon dunes.  How do we take that and put it in an online environment?” she wondered.  George glanced at her.  “Someone has brought the conference to the beach, I think.” Later, they stopped off for a coffee in the old town of Florence before ending the day in Yachats where they stayed at the Overleaf Inn.

I could get used to this, George thought, checking the market news from his balcony while the last streaks of sunset and orange turned to purple and gray out over the ocean.  The BLS reported that the 4-week average of new unemployment claims had fallen below 295,000.

Levels lower than this had occurred rarely – in early 2006, 2000 and the winter of 1987-88. Yet there was no dancing in the streets.

Instead, investors focused on the 10% drop in factory orders for August.  Most of the decline was due to volatile aircraft orders, which had surged in July followed by an equal drop in August. The market remained flat.

On Friday, George and Mabel walked several miles on the 804 trail, a sometimes dirt, sometimes asphalt path that ran for many miles along the Oregon cliffs.  They ate at the Drift Inn that evening.  Good food.  “You think there’s much work for younger folks around here other than the tourist industry?” he asked Mabel.  “I doubt it,” she replied. “We’ve seen a lot of twenty-somethings working at hotel reception desks, waiters, waitresses, the coffee shop in Florence.  They can’t be making a lot of money.  Still it is lovely here”, she mused.  “Could be more sun, ya know?”  George nodded.  “We’re kinda spoiled in Colorado,” he said.

When they returned to their hotel room later that night, a stiff wind blew off the ocean, bringing with it a bit more chill than either of them had packed for on this trip.  George checked the monthly employment data released that morning by the BLS.  Job gains had surprised to the upside at almost 250K but the market had still closed below Wednesday’s opening price and was still below the 10-day average. He pulled up some FRED data to get a snapshot of the relative health of the labor force seven years after the start of the recession.   The results were rather chilling – or maybe it was the dampness of the Oregon coast that he was unaccustomed to.  In seven years the number of employed people had grown just 1% – not 1% annually but 1% total for the entire time.

2.6 million more people were working part time because they could not find full time work. The number of underemployed had grown almost twice the 1.4 million new jobs created in seven years.

The unemployment rate had dropped below 6% in September but even that bit of positive news did not look so good when George pulled up the historical snapshot of unemployment since the recession began.

The rate had risen more than 1% in those seven years.  Despite all the talk of recovery, the surge of stock prices from the lows of 2009 and the rise in home values, the labor market was still wounded.

“Why don’t you help me figure out where we’re going to stay tomorrow in Newport?”, Mabel asked.  “One of my friends suggested the Elizabeth St. Inn.”
“Fine with me.  I want to see the Aquarium if it’s open,” George replied.  “Hey, check out the moon.”  Then he put on his windbreaker, pulled a blanket off the bed and went to sit out on the balcony.  Through the shifting clouds, moonlight shone softly on the water below.  Mabel, taking a cue from her husband, tugged a blanket from the second bed, wrapped it around her and sat with him.

Employment, Income and GDP

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May 4th, 2014

Employment

Private payroll processor ADP estimated job gains of 220K in April and revised March’s estimate 10% higher, indicating an economy that is picking up some steam.  Of course, we have seen this, done that, as the saying goes.  Good job gains in the early months of 2012 and 2013 sparked hopes of a strong resurgence of economic growth followed by OK growth.

New unemployment claims this week were pushing 350K, a bit surprising.  The weekly numbers are a bit volatile and the 4 week average is still rather low at 320K.  In a period of resurgent growth, that four week average should continue to drift downward, not reverse direction. Given the strong corporate profit growth expectations in the second half of the year, there is a curious wariness in the market.  Conflicting data like this keeps buyers on the sidelines, waiting for some confirmation.  CALPERS, the California Employees Pension Fund with almost $200 billion in assets, expressed some difficulty finding value in U.S. equities and is looking abroad to invest new dollars.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported job gains of 288K in April, including 15K government jobs.  Most sectors of the economy reported gains but there are several surprises in this report.  The unemployment rate dropped to 6.3% from 6.7% the previous month, but the decline owes much to a huge drop in labor force participation.  After poking through the 156 million mark recently, the labor force shrank more than 800,000 in April, more than wiping out the 500,000 increase in March.

To give recent history some context notice the steady rise in the labor force since the end of World War 2, followed by a flattening of growth in the past six years.

The core work force, those aged 25 – 54 years, finally broke through the 95 million level in January and rose incrementally in February and March.  It was a bit disappointing that employment in this age group dropped slightly this month.

To give this some perspective, look at the employment rate for this age group. Was the strong growth of employment in the core work force largely a Boomer phenomenon unlikely to repeat?  Perhaps this is why the Fed indicated this week that we may have to lower our expectations of growth in the future.

Discouraged job seekers and involuntary part timers saw little change in this latest report.  On the positive side, there was no increase.  On the negative side, these should decline in a growing economy.  There simply isn’t enough growth.  Was the strong pickup in jobs this past month a sign of a resurgent economy?  Was it simply a make up for growth hampered by the exceptional winter?  The answers to these and other questions will become clearer in the future.  My time machine is in the shop.

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GDP

Go back with me now to those days of yesteryear – actually, it was last year.  Real GDP growth crossed the 4% line in mid year.  The crowd cheered.  Then the economic engine began to slow down. The initial estimate of fourth quarter growth a few months ago was 3.2%.  The second estimate for that period was revised down to 2.4%, far below a half century’s average of 3%.  This week the final estimate was nudged up a bit to 2.6%, but still below the long term average.

Earlier in the week, the Federal Reserve announced that it will continue its steady tapering of bond buying and that it may have to adjust long term policy to a slower growth model.  The harsh winter makes any analysis rather tentative so we can guess the Fed doesn’t want to get it wrong?

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Manufacturing – ISM

ISM reported an upswing in manufacturing activity in April, approaching the level of strong growth.  The focus will be on the service sector which has been expanding at a modest clip.  I’ll update the CWPI when the ISM Service sector report comes out next week.

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Income – Spending

Consumer income and spending showed respectable annual gains of 3.4% and 4.0%.  The BLS reported that earnings have increased 1.9% in the past twelve months. CPI annual growth is a bit over 1% so workers are keeping ahead of inflation, but not by much.   Auto sales remain very strong and the percentage of truck sales is rising toward 60%, a sign of growing confidence by those in the construction and service trades.  Construction spending rose in March .2% and is up over 8% year over year but the leveling off of the residential housing market has clearly had an effect on this sector in the past six months.

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Conservative and Liberals

While this blog focuses mainly on investing and economics, public policy is becoming an ever increasing part of each family’s economic heatlh, both now and particularly in the future.
Some conservatives say that they endorse policies which strengthen the family yet are against rent control, minimum wage and family leave laws, all of which do support families.  How to explain this apparent contradiction?  A feature of philosophies, be they political, social or economic, is that they have a set of rules.  Some rules may be common to competing philosophies but what distinguishes a conceptual framework or viewpoint is the difference in the ordering of those rules.  The prolific author Isaac Asimov, biologist and science fiction writer, proposed a set of three rules programmed into each robot to safeguard humans.  A robot could not obey the second law if it conflicted with the first.  Robots are rigid; humans are not.  Yet we do construct some ordering of our rules.

A conservative, then, might have a rule that policies that protect the family are good.  But conservatives also have two higher priority rules which honor the sanctity of contract and private property: 1) that government should not interfere in voluntary private contracts, and 2) that private property is not to be taken from private individuals or companies without some compensation, either money or an exchange of a good or service. Through rent control policies, governments interfere in a private contract between landlord and tenant and essentially take money from a landlord and give it to a tenant, a violation of both rules 1 and 2.  Minimum wage and mandatory family leave laws enable a government to interfere in a private contract between employer and employee and essentially transfer money from one to the other, another violation of both rules.

In my state, Colorado, there is no rent control.  Instead, landlords receive a prevailing market price and low income tenants receive housing subsidies and energy assistance.  Under rent control, money is taken from a specific subset of the population, landlords, and given to tenants.  Under housing subsidies, money is taken from general tax revenues of one sort or another and given to tenants.  Of the two systems, housing subsidies seems the fairer but many conservatives object to either policy because the government takes from individuals or companies without any exchange, a violation of rule #2.  All policies like housing subsidies which involve transfers of income from one person to another, are mandatory charity, and violate rule #2.

Liberals want to support families as well but they have a different set of rules that prioritizes the sanctity of the social contract: 1) individuals living in a society have an obligation to the well being of other members of that society, and 2) those with greater means have a greater obligation to the well being of the society.  A government which is representative of the individuals of that society has the responsibility to facilitate the movement of wealth and income among those individuals in order to achieve a more equitable balance of happiness within the society.  Flat tax policies espoused by more conservative individuals violate rule #2.  Libertarian proposals for a much smaller regulatory role for government violate rule #1.

For liberals, both of the above rules are subservient to the prime rule: humans have a greater priority than things.  When the preservation of property rights violates the prime rule, property rights are diminished in preference to the preservation of human well-being.  On the other hand, conservatives view property rights as an integral aspect of being human; to diminish property rights is to diminish an individual’s humanity.

In the centuries old dynamic tension between the individual and the group, the liberal view is more tribal, focusing on the well being of the group.  Liberals sometimes ridicule some tax policies espoused by conservatives as “trickle down economics.”  In a touch of irony, it is liberals who truly believe in a trickle down approach in social and economic policies.  The liberal philosophy seeks to protect society from the natural and sometimes reckless self-interest of the individuals within that society. The conservative viewpoint is concerned more with the protection of the individual from the group, believing that the group will achieve a greater degree of well-being if the individuals are secure in their contracts and property. Conservatives then favor what could be called a bottom up approach to organizing society.

Conservatives honor the social contract but give it a lower priority than private contracts.  Liberals honor private contracts but not if they conflict with the social contract. Most people probably fall somewhere on the scale between the two ends of these philosophies and arguments about which approach is “right” will never resolve the fundamental discord between these two philosophies.

In the coming years, we are going to have to learn to negotiate between these two philosophies or public policy will have little direction or effectiveness.  Negotiating between the two will require an understanding of the ordering of priorities of each ideological camp.

Before the 1970s political candidates were picked by the party bosses in each state, who picked those candidates they thought would appeal to the most party voters in the district.   The present system of promoting political candidates by a primary system within each state has favored candidates who are fervent advocates of a strictly conservative or liberal philosophy, chosen by a small group of equally fervent voters in each state.  The middle has mostly deserted each party, leading to a growing polarization.  Survey after survey reveals that the views of most voters are not as polarized as the candidates who are elected to represent them. A graph from the Brookings Institution shows the increasing polarity of the Congress, while repeated surveys indicate that voters are rather evenly divided.

Personal Income

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To understand why so many people are still hurting, take a look at the graph below.  This is per capita inflation adjusted income less what are called transfer receipts – government payments to people like Social Security, food stamps, Unemployment insurance, etc.  Previous recessions have seen a flattening of income and a few have seen a decline in income but nothing like what we have experienced during this past recession.  The “cliff” is a decrease of 12.5%.

Including transfer payments from the government, the decline is only 8.5%.

The difference is about $1.5 trillion dollars per year that goes to people to pay bills, to pay for housing, to buy food and medicine.  Almost all of that money gets spent.  It is true that government is borrowing to pay out that money but without that extra “juice”, we would no doubt have been in a depression.

The federal government is about to hit the $16 trillion mark in debt.  Eventually interest rates will go up and the government will have to pay several hundred billion dollars more each year in interest payments on that debt.  That is billions of dollars that won’t be available for people or guns.  The worst of the decline is over.  Now is the time for us to stop shouting at each other and talk earnestly about some really tough problems.