Dashboard update: some relief for markets

Macro and Markets Dashboard: United States (February 27, 2016 — PDF)

The U.S. economy and financial markets received some much needed relief during the past week. The S&P 500 was up 1.5% on the week, and volatility, as measured by the CBOE VIX, closed below 20. Ten-year treasury bond yields rose, ending the week at 1.76%. Second-estimate GDP data for the fourth quarter of 2015 was revised up from 0.7% to 1.0%, largely due to higher levels of inventories. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices increased roughly 10% during the week. Personal consumption expenditures as a share of GDP increased dramatically, as shown below (through my measure below includes some extrapolation in the denominator).

Much of what has been driving concerns of investors is uncertainty. One fantastic measure of economic policy uncertainty, prepared by Scott Baker, Nick Bloom, and Steven Davis, looks at three factors: specific newspaper keywords, tax provisions set to expire, and disagreement among economic forecasters. Their website contains up-to-date indices for several countries, as well as more information on their methodology. I’ve added their monthly U.S. economic policy uncertainty index to the dashboard.

One interesting development in foreign exchange markets was the depreciation of Pound Sterling against the dollar following an announcement by Boris Johnson that he would be campaigning for the U.K. to leave the European Union (at least to get “a better deal”). The pound fell by more than 2.5% against the dollar during the past week. The Canadian dollar strengthened more than a percentage point against the U.S. dollar.

Lastly, today was the release of the annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders, a consistently excellent read. Mr. Buffett did weigh in on the U.S. presidential race, but I found his insight into inequality to be a particularly accurate summary:

Though the pie to be shared by the next generation will be far larger than today’s, how it will be divided will remain fiercely contentious. Just as is now the case, there will be struggles for the increased output of goods and services between those people in their productive years and retirees, between the healthy and the infirm, between the inheritors and the Horatio Algers, between investors and workers and, in particular, between those with talents that are valued highly by the marketplace and the equally decent hard-working Americans who lack the skills the market prizes. Clashes of that sort have forever been with us – and will forever continue. Congress will be the battlefield; money and votes will be the weapons. Lobbying will remain a growth industry.

Dashboard update: adjusting the tools

Macro and Markets Dashboard: Japan (February 20, 2016 — PDF)

Macro and Markets Dashboard: United States (February 20, 2016 — PDF)

Given a relatively calm week for markets, I’m going to make a more procedural update this week and share two developments with my tools. First, I’m including a draft dashboard for Japan. Second, I’ll be sprinkling in some bar chart plots, which I hope dig a bit deeper into some interesting time series.

The draft dashboard for Japan still needs a lot of work, but provides a few interesting indicators of macro and market conditions in the land of the rising sun. For example, Japanese government bonds (JGBs) were in the news when the BOJ negative interest rate policy pushed yields on ten year bonds negative. While the shorter-duration bond yields are still negative, ten year yields are now virtually flat (see below). 

Additionally, I’ve developed some bar plots for looking deeper into changes to prices. Below, I include the decomposition of the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index into selected categories. I’ve used the 12-month percentage change to individual CPI and PPI series in this example. Hopefully, I can integrate these charts into the main dashboard, over the coming weeks. We can see from this example, that health care costs continue to rise more rapidly than other costs, and that the fall in energy prices slowed during January.

Dashboard update: investors shift assets to safe havens

Macro and Markets Dashboard: United States (February 13, 2016 — PDF)

As a result of the tumultuous start to the year, investors have been increasingly retreating to bastions like gold, Yen, and Swiss Francs. Gold prices have risen nearly 17 percent so far this year (see below). The Yen has appreciated more than six percent against the dollar during the past week, while the Swiss franc strengthened two and a third percent against the greenback.

Internationally, an increasing share (now 30%) of all government debt offers negative interest rates (the New York Times ran a fantastic piece on negative interest rates). This week, Japanese government bonds were in the news as the yield on the ten-year JGB fell into negative territory. This suggests expectations of prolonged low or negative interest rates. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Yellen said that U.S. officials are looking into the option of negative interest rates. The yield on a ten-year U.S. treasury bond fell to 1.63 percent on Thursday. The spread between this ten year government bond and a high-yield corporate bond has climbed to its highest level since the financial crisis (see below).

Market volatility, as measured by the CBOE VIX, closed above 25 all week, ending the week at 25.04. Oil prices fell further during the week, with the benchmark U.S. measure, front month contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude, closing Friday at USD29.44 per barrel. On Thursday, the price per barrel hit a twelve year low of $26.05 (see below).

Dashboard update: noisy week

Macro and Markets Dashboard: United States (February 6, 2016 — PDF)

Modest U.S. macroeconomic data continues to pour in, yet equity markets tumbled, possibly pricing in a steeper trajectory for the fed funds rate. JP Morgan Funds’ chief strategist, David Kelly noted in his weekly podcast that the noisy week was “unlikely to resolve issues troubling markets”.

Yesterday’s jobs report showed an increase in non-farm payrolls of 151,000 workers, bringing the unemployment rate down to 4.9%. The number of long-term unemployed was basically unchanged. The civilian labor force participation rate improved by a tenth of a percent to 62.7. Wages also improved slightly; average hourly earnings are 2.5 percent higher than a year ago.

A new note from Francisco Blanch of Bank of America Merrill Lynch reminded that the oil price collapse generates an enormous wealth transfer from oil producers to consumers. Over time, this type of transfer may show up in personal savings rate or personal consumption expenditure data, however, the December personal savings rate was unchanged at 5.5 percent.

January manufacturing PMI data was practically unchanged at 48.2, however the index of non-manufacturing business activity fell more than 9 percent to 53.9.

Major U.S. equity market indicators were down on the week, and tech stocks were hit particularly hard on Friday. The S&P 500 was down more than three percent during the week, and the Nasdaq composite index dropped more than five percent. Oil, as measured by front month contracts of WTI, closed Friday at $30.89 a barrel.

The dollar depreciated against most major currencies during the week, providing some relief for U.S. exporters (and policymakers). The dollar weakened more than four percent against the Brazilian Real, more than three percent against the New Zealand Dollar, and more than two percent against the Euro, Yen, Canadian Dollar, and Swiss Franc. The dollar was down roughly 1.7 percent against sterling.