If you are just getting worried now about the economy over what Ben Bernanke said about the economy in today’s testimony I have to ask, where have you been? Did you not read the Fed minutes when they came out? Have you not read any of the economic indicators that have been showing we are heading for a slowdown? How about IBM’s cautious warning or other firms who are being cautious about the immediate future?
My point is simple, the data is fairly clear, a slowdown is coming, period. Double dip? Probably, but we will not know for some time now. However, it is likely we are facing severe challenges moving forward and Ben is scared, he is out of ammo and he knows it. Everyone is speculating and asking what he is going to do to spur the economy ‘if’ it weakens which is an absurd question because it is weakening and what is Ben doing? Nothing, why? Because he can’t.
Sure, he can stop paying interest on bank reserves, but banks will not lend because they are impaired still, he admitted that today. Plus, banks will just turn around and buy treasuries because lending is just too risky right now which is why banks are not lending, on top of their balance sheets being loaded with debts marked to make believe. Everyone also believes quantitative easing is on the way, but it is not. I have said this many times before and will say it again, QE accomplished its goal, lowered mortgage rates, treasury rates and the dollar. I ask, what direction are mortgage rates, treasuries and the dollar headed? We are out of the “liquidity” crisis part of our issues and are into the nobody wants to buy anything part of the problem, QE will not solve that problem.
Earnings season is a dud, period. I know, Apple, Apple, big deal they have the hottest products out right now and you expected them to fail or something? The question you have to ask yourself id this, what can Apple do next? They clearly had to push the iPhone 4 out and the iPad is something they really did not want to do, they were forced into it because they were told to by the geek squads. What product do they have next up their sleeve? Nothing so you better hope a whole lot of people want to keep buying an iPhone that doesn’t really work as the title implies. Outside of Apple we had a couple of other standouts in the earnings department, but more misses than anyone wants to admit. There were lots of revenue misses which means cost cutting worked, but poor sales are still poor sales. The Fed cannot stop that people.
If you were not nervous before you should be nervous now, but I have no idea why you were not nervous before. All the speeches or all the rigged stress tests in the world will not change the facts, the economy on a global scale, is slowing down. Even China says that Europe’s problems are creating big problems, like I forecasted previously, for their exports. How much do you want to bet that the Yuan strengthens further? I do not believe China is slowing down as much on purpose as much as China is just slowing down, but time will tell there. The real question is, if China does slow significantly more than forecasted what happens to the rest of the world? Answer, it isn’t good.
Everyone remembers the aftermath of 9/11/01 and how horrible those days were, but what sticks out in my mind, after the obvious, was what happened after words. The President said to get out and shop, and boy did we, but the thing most do not recall is what the auto industry did to boost sales, 0% financing. This was the beginning of the end for the auto industry simply because how can you ever raise financing costs after you go to 0%. The demand that 0% financing created meant that the automakers would have a heck of a time raising those rates and they needed the sales. It essentially created a major problem for the industry which help speed its way into bankruptcy.
We are seeing the same thing happen in housing with all the government help being injected into the market. We have tax credits to encourage buying, but we also see what the market looks like without those credits, see recent home sales data, and we have the Fed lowering mortgage rates like mad with QE. What happens when/if these programs stop? It will get ugly, just like when the automakers tried to stop 0% financing. If you do not let the markets work their magic, i.e. stop malinvestments, the pain is just prolonged. GM and Chrysler should have gone out of business a few years ago but that 0% financing helped keep them around, however it could not stop the inevitable.
The mistakes made by the automakers are being made by the government with the housing market. Homeowners already enjoy a ton of tax breaks, mortgage interest deductions, property tax deductions, etc. and the last thing they really needed was a tax credit to buy a home. It has helped, the data shows that, but the problem is these programs have to end and then what happens? As we have seen already, with limited data of course, is that housing does not move without that tax credit. Sure we can blame the weather or whatever external force we want, but that is ignoring the obvious, housing wants to go lower. That leads me to believe that more tax credits are on the way and QE is a permanent fixture at the Fed, see Japan.
When you incentivize buying to such a degree you create a major problem for yourself, or the country in this case, as you boost expectations on false hope. Once you remove those incentives and reality sets in you are stuck with doing nothing, clearly something government does not want to do now, or let the market sort things out, what should happen. Because the government has created false hope for a housing recovery they have created more problems than they solved. The sales we do see now are false demand, meaning it is only there because of the rich incentives, which means that many economists and market participants are creating strategies or projections around numbers that are not real. The fact is that without a natural housing recovery the economy cannot recover.
While the insane 0% financing hastened the decline of the automakers into bankruptcy, in my opinion, the government is simply slowing the fall of housing or kicking the can down the road a bit. The good news is that at least the incentives will not cause the government to go into bankruptcy, well on their own at least, but it is an enormous waste of money. The government should step back and stop what they are doing and the Fed needs to stop its QE program. If neither stop and they continue doing this the next leg down will be ugly and, the reality is, we do not need more incentives to buy houses, look at the tax breaks you get now. False demand creates false hope which lures investors into investments they ordinarily would not buy. When that false demand and hope disappear those investments decline in value, investors are being suckered.
GMAC is apparently close to yet another $3.5B in additional aid from the government. This is on top of the original $12B the firm already received the first go around. Of course, the government will insist that this ‘investment’ will be profitable just like CIT, GM, Chrysler and anyone who invested with Bernie Madoff. This news comes on the heels of the Freddie and Fannie announcement that the government will backstop all, not just the original $400B, of the GSE’s losses which could be trillions at the end of the day.
Of course in the case of Freddie and Fannie the top executives will continue to receive millions in compensation because it takes talent to lose billions, it must because Brewster, of Brewster’s Millions, could barely do it if you remember. I find it hard to believe that anyone could possible argue that these bailouts are not permanent or will end at any point in the future. I think this latest blast of reality from the state owned automaker and mortgage issuer is proof enough that these bailouts will continue indefinitely.
The irony is that we are seeing all of these bailouts or ‘additional investments’ in the face of the greatest economic recovery that never was. Let’s face it, when the fantasy 3.5% GDP was whittled down to 2.8% you could live with that because that meant there was still private sector activity, but now that the official 3Q09 GDP figure is 2.2% that means there was no private sector activity at all. That was also with cash for clunkers and the housing tax credit in full force as well. Of course last week’s housing numbers showed us what the housing numbers will look like without government help, in a single word awful, but imagine when mortgage rates are at 6%. Regardless, if things were rosy then I find it hard to believe that GMAC would need more money.
Oh, I forgot, Citi and the rest of the banks are paying back TARP, sure, that means that banks are doing fantastic. Did you read the beginning of the story, the bailouts are permanent and these banks know 2 things, 1) the government will never let them fail; and 2) TARP is not going anywhere. Not only that, but these banks also carry massive guarantees on their portfolios and FDIC issued debt so the repayment of TARP, I am stealing this from Whitney Tilson, is the greatest scam ever. Basically the banks now can pay themselves whatever they want, they have guarantees on the crap on their books, implied guarantees, can issue guaranteed debt (in some cases), now they pay far less for many of those privileges and the government lost 90% of its leverage – nice job guys.
The payback of TARP does not mean banks are healthy it simply means the banks can go to the market and get other suckers to buy their debt to get Uncle Sam off their back. I did not think it was very hard to figure out, but apparently it was because the media and investors are swallowing this stuff hook line and sinker. The proof is in the pudding and bank stocks have done nothing since August and, frankly, the only good one is JP Morgan and who really knows what is on their offshore books or what they are really on the hook for through Bear? To think there will not be a need for another TARP bailout in the near future is crazy, banks would not be holding all this cash if; 1) the economy was really recovering; and 2) they were really as healthy as they want us to believe.
I may have been wrong about a correction this fall, I admit that, but there is no way that the continuous flow of bailouts can be framed as a good thing. Oh, if you are happy about Freddie and Fannie executives paying themselves millions, I would suggest calling your representatives and letting them know how you feel, especially if your in Barney Frank’s district because he really doesn’t care about you.
Oh the media has been working overtime to convince everyone that things are great and there are green shoots everywhere. From a half backed GDP report, which revised 1Q09 down by .9% which you then add in inflated government spending and you magically have good news, to a fully backed jobs report they have managed to turn one bear into a green shoot advocate, Roubini.
In other news mortgage applications plunged again this month thanks to higher interest rates, not sure what to really think about a 5.38% mortgage rate being “high,” but somehow this was spun as sales contract numbers rose, slightly. Contracts really mean nothing as they have a high, relatively high, cancellation rate and I have never based any decisions about the market over this type of data point, it is really a nothing in the big scheme of things. Now if we were talking sales then that is a different story as sales means something. Regardless, mortgage applications dropped which should make yesterdays CNBC story about optimism in the housing market obsolete and defunct as the story was obviously spun to make things look better.
With Roubini now in the camp of the recession will end by December 31st, 2009 the bulls have declared victory and are dancing in the streets. They even got him to say that asset prices should go higher and the risk of a double dip recession is low, all of which is nonsense. After being misquoted a few times and constantly bashed by most people on CNBC it is clear that he has had enough and decided to side with the path of least resistance.
However, I have to disagree with him on equity prices as I see it the S&P 500 have priced in perfection and has set itself up for a big fall. However, even I admit that the inflation of the money supply is making things unpredictable as much of that money ended up in equities. Even so, I think we are in for a wild ride in the near future.
With mortgage applications down and mortgage rates up I think it is safe to assume that the residential housing market will continue to languish in the near future. That is until the Fed magically lowers rates again through quantitative easing, monetizing our debt, but I am fairly convinced that will not do much to spur sales. People are funny, when they see prices continuing to fall they tend to stop buying to wait for a bottom which creates a paradox for the real estate market as they need buyers to stop prices from falling.
In a nutshell, things are tough and I am willing to bet we are in for much lower equity prices in the near future. While Roubini has been tamed and the media works on spinning the mortgage application data and claim that new contracts are indicative of potential sales, which they are not, to declare the real estate market “stabilized” I will continue with my bearish outlook until things fundamentally change. So far, I have seen the fundamentals weaken, not strengthen and there is simply no compelling reason to buy equities at these prices.
As if we need another reason for a slowdown in the housing industry Freddie and Fannie 30 year fixed rate mortgage securities have reached a 2-month high. The rates have crept up to 4.72% from a low of 4.38% reached on July 31st. The good news is that this type of rate increase is pretty insignificant for lower end homes, but the bad news is that this type of rate increase will have a greater effect on the middle-to-higher end home sales.
Even though the housing sales numbers have looked much better over the past few months the improvements were largely in the lower end of the market. The middle and higher end of the market is pretty much dead in the water and will more than likely continue to have price declines. This is not surprising as all of the benefits and incentives are really for first time home buyers who are not going to be able to buy the multi-hundred thousand dollar homes.
The difference between yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30-year fixed-rate mortgage bonds and 10 year Treasuries widened 0.04 percentage point today to 0.97 percentage point, the widest since July 21, Bloomberg data show. The spread on Aug. 3 reached the tightest in more than two months, at 0.88 percentage point.
Barclay’s anticipates further declines of 11% in housing prices while Deutsche Bank estimates a 14% decline extending into 2011. The increase in yields on mortgage backed securities is also from lack of interest from investors as well. However the Fed is buying so who knows where rates will be in the near future. Regardless, higher rates will have some impact on housing sales in the near-term, but with rates so low it really shows just a lack buyers in the housing market.
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