Tag: the fed

The Fed isn’t about to back down from its inflation fight | CNN Business
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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

London
CNN Business
—

Twelve days from now, the Federal Reserve will meet again, and expectations for the central bank’s next moves are firming up. The consensus among investors: Persistently hot inflation means the Fed will need to continue with its string of aggressive interest rate hikes, which is unprecedented in the modern era.

What’s happening: Markets see a 99% probability that rates will rise by another three-quarters of a percentage point, reaching a range of 3.75% to 4%.

A hike of that magnitude is now “a given,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, told clients on Wednesday. “Concern is now focused on December, and whether the Fed is prepared to transition to smaller rate hikes.”

That’s up from a 60% probability one month ago. So what changed?

Inflation, mainly. The US Consumer Price Index rose 8.2% in the year to September after rising 8.3% annually in August. While CPI peaked at 9.1% in June, that reading was still uncomfortably elevated and higher than economists had expected.

The 6.6% annual uptick in shelter costs was of particular concern. It takes longer for housing expenses to come back down than some other categories, since renters tend to sign leases for 12-month periods. The monthly rise in core services costs (excluding energy) was the largest gain in three decades.

The data underscored the need for the Federal Reserve to stay tough — while a strong jobs report for September will deliver confidence the central bank can do so without causing undue harm to the US economy.

Fed officials have said as much. In an interview with Reuters on Friday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said inflation had become “pernicious,” which means that “frontloading” larger rate hikes is logical.

The market impact: The S&P 500 kicked off the week with a 3.8% rally before dropping 0.7% on Wednesday. It’s still plodding along in a bear market, about 23% below its January peak. So long as the Fed signals its intention to keep the pressure on, boosting the odds of a US recession, volatility is expected to persist.

Even relatively solid corporate earnings may not be sufficient to change the direction.

“So far, the results are decent, but they’re being compared to consensus estimates that have been persistently lowered since early summer,” noted strategists at Charles Schwab.

Tesla

(TSLA) posted a solid quarter of earnings and record revenue, but now says it will likely fall short of its target for a 50% growth in the number of cars it sells this year.

Quick rewind: As recently as July, the company said it was still aiming for a target of 50% growth from the 936,000 cars it delivered in 2021.

But with two quarters of disappointing deliveries caused by supply chain issues and Covid-related shutdowns in China, that goal has looked increasingly out of reach, my CNN Business colleague Chris Isidore reports.

CEO Elon Musk said that the electric carmaker is not struggling with demand.

“We expect to sell every car that we make, for as far in the future as we can see,” he said on a call with analysts on Wednesday.

Instead, the company said it would “just” miss its target due to complications with delivery of cars from its factories to customers at the end of the year.

Shares are down 5% in premarket trading on Thursday. They’ve dropped 37% year-to-date, compared to a 22.5% fall in the S&P 500.

“This quarter was not roses and rainbows,” said Dan Ives, tech analyst for Wedbush Securities. “Competition is increasing. There are some logistical challenges.”

America’s business leaders are becoming more pessimistic. The Conference Board recently reported a slide in its CEO confidence index, which it said had hit levels not seen “since the depths of the Great Recession.”

Of the 136 CEOs who were surveyed, 98% said they were preparing for a US recession over the next 12 to 18 months — and 99% said they were bracing for a recession in Europe.

Notably, the business community is not being quiet about its concerns.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tweeted Tuesday that “the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”

He was responding to a clip of an interview with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, who told CNBC that “it’s a time to be cautious.”

“You have to expect that there’s more volatility on the horizon now,” Solomon said. “That doesn’t mean for sure that we have a really difficult economic scenario. But on the distribution of outcomes, there’s a good chance that we have a recession in the United States.”

American Airlines

(AAL), AT&T

(T), Dow, Nucor

(NUE) and Quest Diagnostics

(DGX) report results before US markets open. CSX

(CSX), Snap

(SNAP) and Whirlpool

(WHR) follow after the close.

Also today:
Initial US jobless claims for last week post at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Existing home sales for September follow at 10 a.m. ET.
Coming tomorrow: Earnings from American Express and Verizon.
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October 20, 2022
The Fed only cares about inflation. That’s bad news for you | CNN Business

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New York
CNN Business
—

Jerome Powell and other members of the Federal Reserve are obsessed with choking off inflation once and for all, even if the Fed’s series of aggressive rate hikes slow the economy to a crawl. That could be bad news for consumers, investors and Corporate America.

What’s more, many market experts and economists note that the rate of inflation, while still uncomfortably high, is falling and should continue to decline – but there is a noted lag effect. Fed vice chair Lael Brainard admitted as much in a speech Monday, saying that “policy actions to date will have their full effect on activity in coming quarters.”

Still, the Fed isn’t done raising rates. Investors are pricing in the strong probability of a fourth consecutive three-quarters of a percentage point hike at the Fed’s next meeting on November 2. And the chances of a fifth straight hike of that magnitude at the Fed’s December 14 meeting are also on the rise.

It seems that Powell wants to atone for his mistake of repeatedly calling inflation “transitory” for much of last year. So the Fed is going to keep raising rates to prove that it is taking inflation seriously, even if that leads to a bigger pullback in stocks…and tipping the economy into a recession.

Needless to say, that’s a problem. Especially since the Fed has two mandates: price stability and maximum employment. That means the jobs market might get hit due to the Fed’s laser-like focus on inflation.

“My concern is that the Fed is tightening so quickly and so significantly without knowing what it means for the economy,” said Brian Levitt, global market strategist with Invesco.

Keep in mind that the Fed’s series of rate hikes are unprecedented in the “modern” era of central banking, i.e. after Alan Greenspan became Fed chair in 1987 and the Fed became far more transparent.

The Fed was far more opaque before Greenspan, and the market didn’t pick apart every speech, policy move and economic forecast the way Wall Street does now. Inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s was also a much different animal, due largely to an oil price shock that lasted years because of a supply shortage.

The current inflation crisis stems from more temporary (we won’t say transitory) supply chain issues tied to the pandemic as well as the rapid reopening of the global economy following a brief recession.

But the economy is now showing cracks. Long-term bond yields have surged, and mortgage rates have popped, cooling off the housing market. The stock market has deflated as well, wringing even more excess from the economy.

“We’re more cautious because the Fed is tightening into a weakening economy,” said Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer and chief market strategist with Truist Advisory Services. “These supersized hikes are the most aggressive in decades. But the Fed has scar tissue from inflation.”

As painful this current bout of inflation is for Americans, it’s nothing compared to what people lived through in the early 1980s before then Fed chair Paul Volcker squashed inflation with a series of massive rate hikes.

Unless pricing pressures pick up again, it appears the year-over-year increase for the consumer price index (CPI) peaked at 9% in June. That’s a big move from about 2.3% in February 2020 just before the pandemic shutdown. But 9% is still a far cry from the CPI high during the Volcker years of 14.6% in early 1980.

And with consumer and wholesale prices already edging lower, some experts worry that the continued uber-hawkish stance by the Fed will do more harm than good for the economy.

“The speed at which the Fed is increasing rates will certainly have some unintended consequences,” said Michael Weisz, president of Yieldstreet, an investment firm that specializes in so-called alternative assets such as real estate, private equity, venture capital and art.

Weisz said the surge in interest rates could lead to a “consumer credit crunch being more pronounced,” in which loans beyond mortgages might become more expensive and harder to get.

Rate hikes raise the costs for companies to pay down their debt, increasing the possibility of corporate bankruptcies and defaults on commercial loans. It may even potentially lead to stagflation…the double whopper of stagnant growth and continued inflation. In other words, prices may remain high and the job market will probably be worse.

“The Fed runs a real risk of over-tightening, as the impacts of the restrictive policy may not flow through inflation and unemployment data until it’s too late,” Weisz added.

As long as inflation remains the bigger issue for the economy, the Fed is going to focus more on getting prices under control. After all, the unemployment rate is at 3.5%, a half-century low.

“The Fed has made it clear their number one priority right now is price stability,” said Dustin Thackeray, chief investment officer of Crewe Advisors. “Until the Fed sees sustained evidence their monetary policy is having a material impact on…the job market, they will maintain their persistent efforts in reining in inflationary pressures.”

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October 12, 2022
The econ Nobel offers a timely warning about central banks’ power | CNN Business

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This story is part of CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free, here.

New York
CNN Business
—

The Nobel in economics is sort of the step-cousin of the Nobel family.

It came about nearly 70 years after its literature and sciences counterparts, in 1969, and is technically called the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.” It is awarded by the Swedish central bank, in honor of the namesake renaissance man Alfred Nobel who established the prizes.

Some scholars really dislike the economics prize, including one of Nobel’s own descendants, who dismissed it as a “PR coup by economists.”

But hey, it still comes with a cash prize. And it’s also pretty useful in reminding the world that economics as an academic field is, frankly, a barely understood hodge-podge of studies that is constantly evolving and so variable it’s almost useless outside of academia. (And I mean that with the utmost respect to economists, who, not unlike journalists, knew what they were doing when they chose their life of suffering.)

Here’s the thing: Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman who guided the US economy through the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, was awarded the Nobel in economics along with two other economists, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig. (Congrats to all the winners, with apologies to Doug and Phil, who will forever be referred to in headlines about the Nobel as “and two other economists.”)

Bernanke, who previously taught at Princeton and earned his Ph.D from MIT, received the award for his research on the Great Depression. In short, his work demonstrates that banks’ failures are often a cause, not merely a consequence, of financial crises.

That was groundbreaking when he published it in 1983. Today, it’s conventional wisdom.

WHY IT MATTERS

The timing is everything here. The Nobel committee has been known to play politics (see: that time Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after being in office for just eight months). And right now, it is using its spotlight to call attention to the high-stakes gamble playing out at central banks around the world, most notably the Fed.

The rapid run-up in interest rates, led by the US central bank, is causing markets around the world to go haywire. And it’s especially bad news for emerging economies.

Monetary tightening — especially when it is aggressive and synchronized across major economies — could inflict worse damage globally than the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic, a United Nations agency warned earlier this month. It called the Fed’s policy “imprudent gamble” with the lives of those less fortunate.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY

On Monday, Diamond, one of the three newly minted Nobel laureates, acknowledged that the rate moves around the world were causing market instability.

But he believes the system is more resilient than it used to be because of hard lessons learned from the 2008 crash, my colleague Julia Horowitz reports.

“Recent memories of that crisis and improvements in regulatory policies around the world have left the system much, much less vulnerable,” Diamond said.

Let’s hope he’s right.

Oh hey, speaking of the Fed inflicting pain: We’re about to see big job losses, according to Bank of America.

Under the rate hikes imposed by Jay Powell & Co, the US economy could see job growth cut in half during the fourth quarter of this year. Early next year, the bank expects to see losses of about 175,000 jobs a month.

The litigation between Elon Musk and Twitter is officially on hold. The two sides now have until October 28 to work out a deal or once again gear up for a courtroom battle.

The big question now is all about the money.

Here’s the deal: Not even the world’s richest person has this kind of cash just lying around. Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stock, which he can’t easily offload for a whole bunch of reasons. He needs to borrow the money, which means he’s got to get banks to pony up.

By most accounts, he’ll be able to make it happen. But the Twitter deal is a harder pitch to make now than it was back in April, when Musk said he’d lined up more than $46 billion in financing, including two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley and other unnamed financial institutions, my colleague Clare Duffy writes.

Musk has spent the past several months trashing Twitter as he sought to renege on his offer. Meanwhile, tech stocks have been hammered, ad revenues are declining, and the global economy has inched closer to a recession, sapping investor appetite for risk.

Musk’s legal team said last week the banks that had committed debt financing previously were “working cooperatively to fund the close.”

Twitter is, understandably, skeptical, given the many curve balls Musk has thrown at them since he got involved with the company earlier this year. The company raised concerns last week that a representative for one of the banks testified that Musk had not yet sent a borrowing notice and “has not otherwise communicated to them that he intends to close the transaction, let alone on any particular timeline.”

What’s Musk’s endgame?

No one knows, perhaps least of all Musk. But many legal experts following the case say Musk understood he’d likely lose at trial and then be forced to buy Twitter anyway. He’d rather buy the entire company than be deposed by Twitter’s lawyers and do further damage to Twitter in a trial.

And the banks may not be able to walk away even if they want to.

“The only way they could get out of it is to claim a material adverse effect and that Twitter has changed so much since they agreed to the deal that they no longer want to finance the deal,” said George Geis, professor of strategy at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Even if the banks succeeded there, Musk may not be off the hook. The judge in the case could rule that Musk was at fault for the financing falling through — not a far-fetched notion after all the trash-talking — and order him to sue Morgan Stanley to provide the funds or close the deal without it.

Bottom line, it seems like Musk will end up owning Twitter one way or another. And given his only vague musings about what he’d actually do with it, there are a whole host of unknowns lurking in Twitter’s future.

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October 10, 2022
White-collar workers are feeling the brunt of the Fed’s rate hikes. Here’s why | CNN Business

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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

New York
CNN Business
—

September’s hotly anticipated jobs data ended up cooling markets on Friday. Stocks fell sharply as investors evaluated the report, which showed more jobs than expected were added to the US economy and indicated that more pain-inflicting interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve lie ahead.

But a breakdown of the numbers shows that the Fed’s plans to weaken the labor market to fight persistent inflation may already be working, just not for everybody.

White-collar office workers appear to be feeling the brunt of the Fed’s actions: The financial and business sector saw a large decline in employment last month. Legal and advertising services also experienced drops. Service and construction workers, meanwhile, are still thriving.

What’s happening: The US economy added 263,000 jobs in September, higher than analyst estimates of 250,000. The unemployment rate came in at 3.5%, down from 3.7% in August.

Leading the gain in jobs was the leisure and hospitality industry, which added 83,000 jobs in September — and employment in food services and drinking places made up 60,000 of those jobs alone. Manufacturing and construction also came in hot, adding 22,000 and 19,000 jobs, respectively.

The largest non-governmental losses in jobs came from the financial industry, which shed 8,000 between August and September. Large banks hire in cycles, extending offers to recent graduates in the early fall months. That makes this September’s drop particularly significant.

Business support services — such as telemarketing, accounting and administrative and clerical jobs — are also bleeding jobs. The sector lost 12,000 in September. Meanwhile, legal services lost 5,000 jobs, and advertising services also dropped 5,000 jobs.

What it means: The Federal Reserve’s hawkish policy appears to be cooling certain parts of the economy, but not others. Finance workers are likely beginning to worry as their industry depends on stock and lending markets which have been particularly hard hit by Fed actions.

Friday’s numbers indicate that we’re beginning to see that impact in the employment data.

What remains to be seen is whether the Fed can cool the economy just by loosening employment in white-collar industries or if these losses will trickle down to other industries, hurting lower-income workers.

Coming up: Earnings season begins in earnest this week with big banks like JPMorgan, Citigroup

(C), Morgan Stanley

(MS) and BlackRock

(BLK) reporting. Investors will be watching closely for any guidance on hiring and layoff plans.

Two key inflation indicators, PPI and CPI are also set to be released. Expect markets to react poorly if inflation comes in hot.

A panel of top US economists just released its economic outlook for the next year, and it’s not great.

The panel of 45 forecasters, led by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), said they expected slower growth, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and weakening employment in both 2022 and 2023 than they previously expected.

Most of the worries come down to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

“More than three-quarters of respondents believe the odds are 50-50 or less that the economy will achieve a ‘soft landing’,” said NABE Vice President Julia Coronado. “More than half the panelists indicate that the greatest downside risk to the U.S. economic outlook is too much monetary tightness.”

NABE panelists downgraded their median forecast for real GDP for the fourth quarter of 2022 to a 0.1% increase, compared to a 1.8% increase in the May 2022 survey. The vast majority of respondents placed more than a 25% probability of a recession occurring in 2023, with the most likely start date in the first quarter.

The latest report comes as a growing number of economists are predicting that recession is imminent. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told CNN on Thursday that it’s “more likely than not” the US will enter a recession, calling it a consequence of the “excesses the economy has been through.”

Friday’s jobs report showed that the share of workers telecommuting or working from home because of the pandemic ticked lower — falling to just 5.2% in September from 6.5% in August.

Fully remote work in the United States, which many predicted would remain the norm long after the pandemic, appears to be edging away, especially as the job market loosens for white collar workers and employees have less leverage.

Last week, a KPMG survey of US-based CEOs found that two-thirds believed in-office work would be the norm within the next three years.

Still, it may not be enough to help an ailing commercial real estate market, where the outlook is dire. New York City office properties declined by nearly 45% in value in 2020 and are forecast to remain 39% below their pre-pandemic levels long-term as hybrid policies continue, according to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Looking forward: The Bureau of Labor Statistics has noted that while hybrid work may still be popular, Covid-19 is no longer fueling work from home trends. The October report will rephrase its telework questions to remove references to the pandemic.

Since May 2020, each jobs report has asked: “At any time in the last four weeks, did you telework or work at home for pay because of the Coronavirus pandemic?”

In May 2020, 35.4% answered yes.

Starting next month, the question will be revised. “At any time in the last week did you telework or work at home for pay?” it will ask, limiting the timeline and eliminating any reference to the pandemic.

The US bond market is closed for Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Coming later this week:

▸ Third quarter earnings season begins. Expect reports from big banks like JPMorgan Chase

(JPM), Wells Fargo

(WFC), Citigroup

(C), Morgan Stanley

(MS), PNC

(PNC) and US Bancorp

(USB) and consumer staples like Pepsi

(PEP), Walgreen

(WBA)s and Domino’s

(DMPZF).

▸ CPI and PPI, two closely watched measures of inflation in the US are also due to be released.

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October 10, 2022
Opinion: The Fed doesn’t have a choice anymore. Get ready for a recession | CNN Business

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Editor’s Note: Gad Levanon is the chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute. He’s the former head of The Conference Board’s Labor Market Institute. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

To many economists and analysts, the US economy has represented a paradox this year. On the one hand, GDP growth has slowed significantly, and some argue, even entered a recession. On the other hand, overall employment growth has been much stronger than normal.

While GDP declined at an annualized rate of 1.1% in the first half of 2022, the US economy added 2.3 million jobs in the last six months, far more than in any other six-month period in the 20 years prior to the pandemic.

This tight labor market – and the rapid wage growth it has spurred – is causing inflation to become more entrenched. The Consumer Price Index, which measures a basket of goods and services, was 8.3% year-over-year in August. That’s lower than the 40-year high of 9.1% in June, but still painfully high. To address it, the Federal Reserve is likely to drive the economy into a recession in 2023, crushing continued job growth.

Why has employment growth remained so strong? First, the US economy is holding on better than many expected. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate for real GDP growth in the third quarter of 2022 is 2.3%, suggesting that while the economy is now growing much more slowly than it did last year, we are still not in a recession. When the demand for goods and services strengthens, so does the demand for workers producing these goods and services.

Second, despite the slowing of the economy and the growing fears of recession, layoffs are still historically low. Initial claims for unemployment insurance, an indicator highly correlated with layoffs, were 219,000 for the week ended October 1 – higher than the week prior, but still one of the lowest readings in recent decades. After years of increasingly traumatic labor shortages, many employers are reluctant to significantly reduce the number of workers even as their businesses are slowing. That’s because companies are worried that they will have trouble recruiting new workers when they start expanding again.

Third, many industries are growing faster than normal because they are still recovering from the pandemic. Convention and trade show organizers, car rental companies, nursing homes and child day care services, among others, are all growing fast because they are still well below pre-pandemic employment levels.

Fourth, just as some industries are growing because they are still catching up, others are experiencing high growth as they adjust to a new normal of higher demand. Demand for data processing and hosting services, semiconductor manufacturing, mental health services, testing laboratories, medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturing is higher than before the pandemic. And it’s likely that these represent structural changes to buying patterns that will keep demand high.

Fifth, during the pandemic, corporate investments in software and R&D reached unprecedented levels, which drove a rapid increase in new STEM jobs. Because these workers are especially well paid, they have had plenty of disposable income to spend on goods and services, which has supported job growth throughout the economy.

These factors are spurring positive momentum that will not disappear overnight. Employment growth is likely to slow down from its historically high rates, but it will still remain solid in the coming months. ManpowerGroup’s Employment Outlook Survey shows that the hiring intentions for the fourth quarter are still very high, despite dropping from the previous quarter.

Next year, however, will look very different. Many of the industries that are still recovering from the pandemic will have reached pre-pandemic employment levels. With demand saturated, those industries may revert to slower hiring. But this alone is unlikely to push job growth into negative territory. What will do that is monetary policy.

There are two ways to rein in the labor market: Either reduce demand for workers or increase the labor supply. But it’s hard to engineer a boost in labor supply. That takes the kind of legislative action needed to increase immigration, drive people into the labor force or grow investment in workforce training. This is likely to prove elusive in today’s polarized political environment.

The only option that leaves the Fed is to engineer a recession by continuing to raise interest rates. Expect to see that happen in 2023.

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October 7, 2022
Mortgage rates take a breather after rising for several weeks in a row | CNN Business

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After rising for six weeks in a row, mortgage rates retreated last week.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.66% in the week ending October 5, down from 6.70% the week before, according to Freddie Mac.

Mortgage rates have more than doubled since the start of this year as the Federal Reserve continues its unprecedented campaign of hiking interest rates in order to tame soaring inflation. But uncertainty about the possibility of a recession and the impact of rate hikes on the economy have made mortgage rates more volatile.

“Mortgage rates decreased slightly this week due to ongoing economic uncertainty,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, rates remain quite high compared to just one year ago, meaning housing continues to be more expensive for potential homebuyers.”

The average mortgage rate is based on a survey of conventional home purchase loans for borrowers who put 20% down and have excellent credit, according to Freddie Mac. But many buyers who put down less money upfront or have less than perfect credit will pay more.

Investors and analysts have been scrutinizing each piece of economic data, searching for clues about the Fed’s next steps and the future of the US and global economies, said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist.

The Fed does not set the interest rates borrowers pay on mortgages directly, but its actions influence them. Mortgage rates tend to track the yield on 10-year US Treasury bonds. As investors see or anticipate rate hikes, they often sell government bonds, which sends yields higher and mortgage rates rise.

Over the past month, yields on 10-year Treasuries soared from 3.25% to nearly 4% before falling back around 3.75% this week.

Hale likened investors’ actions to a driver navigating a road in dense fog, prone to over-correcting at each turn.

“Signs that we are closer to the end of the tightening cycle – such as a surprisingly steep decline in job openings – tend to cause rates to slip, while rates bounce higher on signals like robust activity in the services sector,” Hale said.

Even though rates dipped slightly this week, the average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan is still more than double what it was at this time last year.

A year ago, a buyer who put 20% down on a $390,000 home and financed the rest with a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at an average interest rate of 2.99% had a monthly mortgage payment of $1,314, according to calculations from Freddie Mac.

Today, a homeowner buying the same-priced house with an average rate of 6.66% would pay $2,005 a month in principal and interest. That’s $691 more each month.

As rates have been rising over the last several weeks, fewer people have been applying for mortgages said Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Ongoing economic uncertainty together with Hurricane Ian’s devastation in Florida resulted in a 14% decline in mortgage applications last week from the week before, he said.

MBA also found that an increasing number of borrowers are applying for adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs. Applications for ARMs climbed to nearly 12% of all applications last week.

The average rate for the ARM tracked by Freddie Mac (a 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid ARM) was 5.36%, more than a percentage point lower than the 30-year fixed rate.

“While rate increases are needed to tame inflation and alleviate the burden it places on household budgets, higher borrowing costs have caused consumers to think twice about major purchases like homes and cars,” said Hale.

With more prospective buyers sitting on the sidelines, those still looking to buy have a little more breathing room.

Correction: “Today’s home shoppers have more choices, but for many, the increased cost of financing and higher home prices mean fewer affordable options,” Hale said. “As challenging as it may be to set and stick to a budget in this environment of rising prices and rates, it’s more important than ever to do so.”
A previous version of this story misstated the number of weeks mortgage rates have been rising. Rates rose for six consecutive weeks before falling this week.

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October 6, 2022
The bond market is crumbling. That’s bad for Wall Street and Main Street | CNN Business

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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

New York
CNN Business
—

The global bond market is having a historically awful year.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond, a proxy for borrowing costs, briefly moved above 4% on Wednesday for the first time in 12 years. That’s a bad omen for Wall Street and Main Street.

What’s happening: This hasn’t been a pretty year for US stocks. All three major indexes are in a bear market, down more than 20% from recent highs, and analysts predict more pain ahead. When things are this bad, investors seek safety in Treasury bonds, which have low returns but are also considered low-risk (As loans to the US government, Treasury notes are seen as a safe bet since there is little risk they won’t be paid back).

But in 2022’s topsy-turvy economy, even that safe haven has become somewhat treacherous.

Bond returns, or yields, rise as their prices fall. Under normal market conditions, a rising yield should mean that there’s less demand for bonds because investors would rather put their money into higher-risk (and higher-reward) stocks.

Instead markets are plummeting, and investors are flocking out of risky stocks, but yields are going up. What gives?

Blame the Fed. Persistent inflation has led the Federal Reserve to fight back by aggressively hiking interest rates, and as a result the yields on US Treasury bonds have soared.

Economic turmoil in the United Kingdom and European Union has also caused the value of both the British pound and the euro to fall dramatically when compared to the US dollar. Dollar strength typically coincides with higher bond rates as well.

So while we’d normally see a rising 10-year yield as a signal that US investors have a rosy economic outlook, that isn’t the case this time. Gloomy investors are predicting more interest rate hikes and a higher chance of recession.

What it means: Portfolios are aching. Vanguard’s $514.5 billion Total Bond Market Index, the largest US bond fund, is down more than 15% so far this year. That puts it on track for its worst year since it was created in 1986. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury bond fund

(TLT) (TLT) is down nearly 30% for the year.

Stock investors are also nervously eyeing Treasuries. High yields make it more expensive for companies to borrow money, and that extra cost could lower earnings expectations. Companies with significant debt levels may not be able to afford higher financing costs at all.

Main Street doesn’t get a break, either. An elevated 10-year Treasury return means more expensive loans on cars, credit cards and even student debt. It also means higher mortgage rates: The spike has already helped push the average rate for a 30-year mortgage above 6% for the first time since 2008.

Going deeper: Still, investors are more nervous about the immediate future than the longer term. That’s spurred an inverted yield curve – when interest rates on short-term bonds move higher than those on long-term bonds. The inverted yield curve is a particularly ominous warning sign that has correctly predicted almost every recession over the past 60 years.

The curve first inverted in April, and then again this summer. The two-year treasury yield has soared in the last week, and now hovers above 4.3%, deepening that gap.

On Monday, a team at BNP Paribas predicted that the inverted gap between the two-year and 10-year Treasury yields could grow to its largest level since the early 1980s. Those years were marked by sticky inflation, interest rates near 20% and a very deep recession.

What’s next: The bond market may face fresh volatility on Friday with the release of the Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index for August. If the report comes in above expectations, expect bond yields to move even higher.

The Bank of England held an emergency intervention to maintain economic stability in the UK on Wednesday. The central bank said it would buy long-dated UK government bonds “on whatever scale is necessary” to prevent a market crash.

Investors around the globe have been dumping the British pound and UK bonds since the government on Friday unveiled a huge package of tax cuts, spending and increased borrowing aimed at getting the economy moving and protecting households and businesses from sky-high energy bills this winter, reports my colleague Mark Thompson.

Markets fear the plan will drive up already persistent inflation, forcing the Bank of England to push interest rates as high as 6% next spring, from 2.25% at present. Mortgage markets have been in turmoil all week as lenders have struggled to price their loans. Hundreds of products have been withdrawn.

“This repricing [of UK assets] has become more significant in the past day — and it is particularly affecting long-dated UK government debt,” the central bank said in its statement.

“Were dysfunction in this market to continue or worsen, there would be a material risk to UK financial stability. This would lead to an unwarranted tightening of financing conditions and a reduction of the flow of credit to the real economy.”

Many final salary, or defined-benefit, pension funds were particularly exposed to the dramatic sell-off in longer dated UK government bonds.

“They would have been wiped out,” said Kerrin Rosenberg, UK chief executive of Cardano Investment.

The central bank said it would buy long-dated UK government bonds until October 14.

Steep drops in bond prices may be signaling doom and gloom for the economy, but some analysts say short-term bonds are still looking more attractive than equities right now.

“Record low yields have kept fixed income in the shadow of equities for decades,” said analysts at BNY Mellon Wealth Management in a research note. “But the aggressive shift in Fed policy is beginning to change this.”

Central banks around the globe have responded to elevated inflation by hiking interest rates– and bond yields have increased alongside them. The two-year US Treasury bond is currently yielding nearly 4%. That’s still a relatively low return, but better than the S&P 500’s dividend yield of around 1.7%.

“For the first time in several years, bonds are attractive investment options. In addition to providing diversification versus equities…you now get paid for owning them,” wrote Barry Ritholtz of Ritholtz Wealth Management on Wednesday.

Consider the alternative: the S&P is down more than 20% year to date.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis releases its third estimate for Q2 GDP and US weekly jobless claims.

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October 5, 2022
Wages are the most important number to watch in the jobs report | CNN Business

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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here.

New York
CNN Business
—

Investors, economists and members of the Federal Reserve will be poring over the September jobs report on Friday morning for clues about the health of the economy. But one figure may matter more than most…and it’s not the number of jobs added or the unemployment rate. It’s wage growth.

Inflation is not just a function of the price of oil and other commodities and production costs like manufacturing and shipping. How much workers take home in their paychecks is also a big part of the inflation picture.

When people have more money in their wallets (virtual or good old-fashioned leather ones), they tend to be more willing to spend it. That gives companies additional flexibility to raise prices.

Average hourly wages rose 5.2% over the past 12 months according to the August jobs report. That’s down from a 2022 peak growth rate of 5.6% in March.

So how aggressively will the Fed need to raise rates going forward? A lot will depend on whether wage growth continues to slow.

Companies can’t raise prices as much if workers are making less or they risk big destruction in demand.

The problem is that wage growth above 5% is still historically high. Before the pandemic, wages typically rose just 3% year-over-year. But labor shortages, due to Covid-19 and people dropping out of the workforce, shifted power from employers to employees when it came to worker pay.

That’s another reason why companies have continued to raise prices: To offset rising costs.

The government reported Friday that its preferred inflation metric, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), rose 6.2% from a year ago in August. That was lower than July’s reading.

But the so-called core PCE figure, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 4.9% through August, up from a 4.7% increase in July.

What’s more, the Fed typically is looking for just a 2% growth rate in the headline PCE number as a sign of price stability. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, the Fed’s latest forecasts suggest that the central bank thinks PCE will rise 5.4% this year, up from projections of 5.2% in June.

“I don’t see anything in the near-term to give the Fed tons of comfort that inflation is on the trajectory to 2%,” said David Petrosinelli, senior trader with InspireX. “Wages will remain elevated and that will keep the Fed in a pickle.”

But there’s another concern. Wages, while still rising, are not actually keeping pace with the increase in consumer prices. You don’t need to be a math genius to realize that 5.2% is less than 6.2%.

“Wages are a real pain point. People are paying more but not making more,” said Marta Norton, chief investment officer of the Americas with Morningstar Investment Management. With that in mind, Norton said there is a “higher probability of stagflation.”

Stagflation is the nasty economic combination of stagnant growth and persistent inflation.

Retail sales have held up relatively well despite inflation pressures, but Norton warns that can’t last forever. American shoppers would eventually reach their breaking point and just start buying essentials. A slowdown in consumption will inevitably lead to lower prices…but also slower economic growth.

“Inflation is its own cure. Consumers have the power to spend or not spend,” she said.

The third quarter is mercifully over. It’s been another doozy for the market. September in particular was bleak. It was the worst month for the Dow since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

But even though we’re seemingly in a bear market for everything as bonds, gold and bitcoin have all tumbled this year as well, there are some hopeful signs for the next few months.

The fourth quarter is typically a festive time on Wall Street. Investors tend to buy stocks in anticipation of robust consumer shopping during the holidays. Businesses typically spend more as well to flush out those yearly budgets. And major companies also often give rosy guidance in October about earnings expectations for the coming year.

“October has been a turnaround month—a ‘bear killer’ if you will,” said Jeff Hirsch, editor-in-chief of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, in a recent blog post.

Hirsch added that a dozen bear markets since World War II have ended in the month of October. And of those twelve, seven market bottoms happened during midterm election years.

Traders will definitely be keeping close tabs on Washington this fall to see if Republicans gain control of the House. That could lead to more gridlock in DC, which investors tend to like.

Whether or not Corporate America and investors are going to be so bullish this October is up for debate given the concerns about inflation, interest rates and the global economy. After all, October is also famous for huge crashes, most recently in 2008 but also in 1987 and, of course, 1929.

So stocks definitely could take another turn for the worse. But experts are hopeful that the end of the bear market is in sight.

“We’re nearer to a bottom,” said Christopher Wolfe, chief investment officer of First Republic Private Wealth Management. “A lot of quality companies are on sale. It’s a time to be patient and reposition.”

Monday: US ISM manufacturing; China stock markets closed all week

Tuesday: US job openings and labor turnover (JOLTS); Japan inflation; Australia interest rate decision

Wednesday: US ADP private sector jobs; US ISM services; OPEC+ meeting

Thursday: US weekly jobless claims; earnings from ConAgra

(CAG), Constellation Brands

(STZ), McCormick

(MKC) and Levi Strauss

(LEVI)

Friday: US jobs report; Germany industrial production; earnings from Tilray

(TLRY)

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October 2, 2022
5 ways a debt default could affect you | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

President Joe Biden and House Republicans may have as little as a month to prevent the US from defaulting on its debt, which would impact millions of Americans and unleash economic and fiscal chaos here and around the world.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Monday that the government may not be able to pay all of its bills in full and on time as soon as June 1. However, the forecast was uncertain, and the default date might come several weeks later, she said. The US hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January, and Treasury has been using cash and “extraordinary measures” to satisfy obligations since then.

Just what would happen if the nation defaults on its debt is unknown since it’s never actually happened before. A close call in 2011 roiled the financial markets and prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the US’ credit rating to AA+ from AAA.

Yellen gave a sense of the turmoil it would cause in her letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday.

“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” she wrote.

To be clear, a debt default doesn’t mean all payments would stop and people would permanently lose out on money they are owed. Treasury would have the funds to satisfy some obligations, but it’s not certain how the agency would handle the disbursements. Much would also depend on how long it takes Congress to address the borrowing cap.

“Tens of millions of people across the country who expect payments from the federal government may not get them on time,” said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Here are five ways that Americans could be affected by debt default:

About 66 million retirees, disabled workers and others receive monthly Social Security benefits. The average payment for retired workers is $1,827 a month in 2023.

Almost two-thirds of beneficiaries rely on Social Security for half of their income, and for 40% of recipients, the payments constitute at least 90% of their income, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

These payments could be delayed in a debt default scenario, though it’s possible Treasury could continue making on-time payments because of the entitlement program’s trust fund, Akabas said.

The benefits are disbursed four times a month, on the third day of the month and on three Wednesdays. Roughly $25 billion a week is sent out, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Even a short delay in the payment of Social Security benefits would be a burden for the millions of Americans who rely on their earned benefits to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses, food, rent and utilities,” Max Richtman, the committee’s CEO, said in a statement.

Many other government payments could also be affected, including funding for food stamps; federal grants to states and municipalities for Medicaid, highways, education and other programs; and Medicare payments to hospitals, doctors and health insurance plans.

More than 2 million federal civilian workers and around 1.4 million active-duty military members could see their paychecks delayed. Federal government contractors could also see a lag in payments, which could affect their ability to compensate their workers.

Also, certain veterans benefits, including disability payments and pensions for some low-income veterans and their surviving families, could be affected.

“Such calamity would place further stress on our servicemembers, retirees, and veterans, as well as their families, caregivers, and survivors,” Rene Campos, senior director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America, said in a blog post. “Though life in uniform is not always predictable, those who serve or have served their country expect their country to honor their commitment to service.”

About $25 billion in pay or benefits for active-duty members of the military, civil service and military retirees, veterans and recipients of Supplemental Security Income is sent out on the first day of the month, according to the CBO.

Americans’ investments would take a direct hit. Case in point: Markets had what was then their worst week since the financial crisis during the 2011 debt ceiling standoff after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade.

Even if the debt ceiling impasse is resolved soon after a default, stocks could shed as much as a third of their value. That would wipe out around $12 trillion in household wealth, according to Moody’s Analytics.

If a default occurs, yields on US Treasuries will inevitably rise to compensate for the increased risk that bondholders won’t receive the money they’re owed from the government.

Since interest rates on loans, credit cards and mortgages are often based on Treasury yields, the cost of borrowing money and paying off debt would rise. That’s on top of the increased costs Americans are already facing from the Federal Reserve rate hikes.

Families and businesses would also have a tougher time getting approved for lines of credit since banks would have to be more selective about to whom they loan money. That’s because their costs of borrowing money will also rise, which limits the amount of money they can lend out.

A debt default could trigger an economic downturn, which would prompt a spike in unemployment. It would come at a particularly fragile time – when the nation is already dealing with rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation.

How much damage would be done would depend on how long the crisis continues. If the default lasts for about a week, then close to 1 million jobs would be lost, including in the financial sector, which would be hard hit by the stock market declines. Also, the unemployment rate would jump to about 5% and the economy would contract by nearly half a percent, according to Moody’s.

But if the impasse dragged on for six weeks, then more than 7 million jobs would be lost, the unemployment rate would soar above 8% and the economy would decline by more than 4%, according to Moody’s. The effects would still be felt a decade from now.

“It would be a body blow to the economy, and it would be a manufactured crisis,” said Bernard Yaros, an economist at Moody’s.

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April 12, 2021