The Tenuous Rebound Continues

James Picerno describes two economic indicators that are providing good signs of economic recovery - the positive yield curve and a peak of unemployment claims. On the other side, the lack of job creation and lending could threaten economic expansion. See the following post from The Capital Spectator.

The news on new filings for unemployment benefits once again favors the idea that economic recovery is continuing. It’s a tenuous rebound, one ripe with caveats, including a big one we’ll discuss below. But it’s a rebound nonetheless.

The Labor Department today reports that initial jobless claims dropped to 502,000 last week, down from the previous week’s 514,000. That leaves us at the lowest level since the week through January 3, 2009. As our chart below reminds, the trend has certainly been our friend this year for the general change in jobless claims.



Back in March, we wrote about the possibility if not the likelihood that a peak in jobless claims would signal the end of the recession. In subsequent months, we revisited the mounting evidence that the initial claims pattern was on a sustainable downtrend, including here and here. Jobless claims alone don’t suffice as a definitive sign of things to come, but this data series is on the short list of clues to watch for judging turning points in the business cycle.

Changes in the yield curve are also worth monitoring, and this too has been flashing a positive signal for some time. History tells us that when the yield curve turns negative (short rates above long rates), the odds of recession go up sharply. The subsequent return of a positively sloped yield curve (short rates below long rates) provides the opposite message: rebound is coming. As we've discussed in the past, when the yield curve turned positive after signaling recession in 2007, the implications were bullish. The signal was early, as it usually is, but proven durable once more.

Today, a variety of economic trends continue to point in the direction of recovery. We routinely dissect and analyze a variety of macro indictors in each issue of The Beta Investment Report, your editor's monthly review of asset allocation, portfolio strategy and economic news. The newsletter’s proprietary set of economic yardsticks are still flashing encouraging signs, as illustrated in the second chart below (republished from the current issue of the newsletter). Based on the last full month of data reported (through Sep. 2009), our composite measures of U.S. economic activity remain upward biased. The October data reported so far, along with today’s initial jobless claims update, further support the idea that recovery momentum remains intact.



The natural tendency of the economy to snap back after stumbling is still alive and kicking, strengthened by ongoing monetary and fiscal stimulus efforts. But this isn’t a normal recovery, in part because the labor market losses have been unusually deep and long lasting. Indeed, the great challenge still lies ahead, as we’ve been discussing for some time. The problem isn’t so much job loss from this point forward; rather, it’s the lack of job creation that may threaten.

In essence, we should distinguish between recovery and growth. The business cycle is now in recovery mode, but growth of a meaningful, sustainable sort has yet to arrive.

There are other ills afoot as well. As we discuss in the current issues of the newsletter, lending activity continues to shrink. Commercial and industrial loans fell nearly 6% in September from the previous month and are off by nearly 11% over the past year. Lending is a critical factor in fueling future growth and so the trend here suggests that expansion will be muted for the foreseeable future beyond the snapback effect that’s prevailed recently.

Minting new jobs and juicing lending are among the last great cleanup actions for mending the Great Recession. But the statistical clues at the moment don’t offer much encouragement for an imminent recovery on these fronts. Yes, the forces of contraction per se are rapidly fading, as suggested in today’s jobless claims report. It's the weakness on the outlook for growth that worries us.

This post has been republished from James Picerno's blog, The Capital Spectator.

Another Round Of Stimulus Anyone?

Although most economists proclaim the recession to be at an end, the expected surge in foreclosure and unemployment rates could precipitate the recurrence of a recession which has some economists calling for more government stimulus. The argument is that another round of effective stimulus could prevent the slowest recovery in modern memory. See the following from Economist's View.

As many of us have been saying for some time now, more stimulus would speed the recovery -- the jobs outlook is particularly worrisome -- but unfortunately, it doesn't appear that more stimulus is politically feasible:

The Case for More Stimulus, Editorial, NY Times: The consensus among economists is that the recession is over, and, technically, the herd is probably right. ... Immense federal stimulus has jolted the economy.

But... The economy is going to need more government support, or it is bound to be very weak for a very long time — and vulnerable to a relapse into recession. Unemployment is expected to worsen well into next year, exceeding 10 percent. Foreclosures are expected to rise, which will push home values down further. Hundreds of small and midsize banks are likely to fail in coming years. State and local governments face budget shortfalls in 2010 that are as bad or worse than this year’s.

Yet Washington is not providing a coherent plan for effective stimulus. The Senate has been hamstrung for nearly a month over the most basic relief-and-recovery boost: an extension of unemployment benefits. ... Lawmakers in both parties fret that large budget deficits preclude more stimulus, lest the burden of debt outweigh the benefit of deficit spending. ... Deficits are a serious issue, but the immediate need for stimulus trumps the longer-term need for deficit reduction. A self-reinforcing stretch of economic weakness would be far costlier than additional stimulus.

The Senate could take a step in the right direction by extending unemployment benefits without further delay. ... Next, Congress and the administration should agree on ways to ease the dire financial condition of the states. Most important is continued aid for state Medicaid programs... As long as the states are suffering, any economic recovery efforts by the federal government are undermined. ...

Without another round of effective stimulus, the worst recession in modern memory will likely become — at best — the weakest recovery in modern memory. Another boost to federal spending that is targeted and timely should not be too much for politicians to deliver.

Recall this recent graph from the San Francisco Fed:



Output is not expected to return to potential until well into 2012.

Now recall the long delay between the end of the last two recessions and the peak in the unemployment rate (or just about any other labor market indicator):



And the recovery for the labor market could be even slower this time.

To be fully effective, plans for additional stimulus should have been in place long ago. However, given how long the recovery is expected to take, it's not too late to do more if we get started right away. But the political climate makes it highly unlikely that labor markets and the economy will get the help that they need.

This post has been republished from Mark Thoma's blog, Economist's View.

Will Economic Recovery Be Behind Door V, U, or W?

Economist's say that there are three major possibilities for how the economy will exit the current recession, but the outcome remains highly uncertain. Some new information on the leading indicator of new orders for manufactured durable goods may provide some clues on what to expect. The following post from The Capital Spectator describes some factors that may shed light on the type of recovery that is most probable.

Is today's update on new orders for durable goods a sign of an approaching V, U or W? Translated: Is the economy poised to rebound sharply and deliver strong growth—a V recovery? Or is a U-type future, with slow to negligible growth, approaching? Even worse, could an imminent rebound be little more than a prelude to a second recession, a.k.a. the W cycle?

That summarizes the great questions that prevail as the world attempts to handicap the winding down of the Great Recession. As always, the central challenge is that we're left with a great unknown, even if today's news on durable goods suggests otherwise.

As monthly numbers go, July's update for the series is undoubtedly encouraging. New orders for manufactured durable goods in July increased 4.9%, the U.S. Census Bureau reports. That's the third increase in the last four months and the largest percent gain in two years.



No one can deny that such news constitutes progress. Ditto for the accumulating evidence in other economic reports that the economy, if not quite on the mend, is no longer contracting. A number of clues have been suggesting no less for months, as we've been discussing on these digital pages for some time, including the all-important weekly updates on initial jobless claims. Additional support for thinking the economy's stabilizing arrived in yesterday's upbeat news on consumer sentiment and housing prices: both are rising.

None of this is particularly shocking, although the timing was always in doubt. But surely no one expected the U.S. economy, still the world's largest, to remain in downsizing mode indefinitely. The emotional bias in the dark days of this year's first quarter may have convinced us to see a continually dire future. But the recession at that point was already more than a year old, by NBER's accounting, and the natural economic order tells us that recovery arrives eventually. Meanwhile, the massive countercyclical efforts of the Federal Reserve, plus the fiscal stimulus embraced back in February, was sure to have an impact. In fact, one might argue that President Obama's reappointment of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to a second term is formal recognition of the success in the central bank's aggressive actions intent on slowing if not ending the downturn.

What's more, the financial and commodity markets have reacted by elevating prices, in effect offering additional corroboration that the business cycle was turning. But while it's tempting to see us headed for a V recovery, the odds seem to favor a U. We've been forecasting just that future for some time by emphasizing that the "technical" end of the recession was imminent if not already here but it would be followed by a tepid recovery.

As welcome as that revised outlook is relative to what preceded it, there's a danger of overlooking the risk that follows this time around. Namely, a series of generational adjustments that threaten to conspire by leaving the economy in a weakened state for an unusually lengthy stretch. The most conspicuous risks: the likelihood that consumer spending growth will remain subdued for some time and the labor market will be slow to respond to so-called recovery.

There are any number of other challenges looming as well, starting with the nuances tied to the timing and magnitude of the Fed's so-called exit strategy. The challenge looks unusually bland at the moment, but it won't stay that way. Indeed, to the extent the economic recovery is stronger than expected, the exit strategy problems will be that much bigger.

Perhaps then the principal question is: Has the crowd priced in the post-recession risks that await? The first half of the business cycle has been unusual on a number of levels, as the last two years remind. We're probably just about midway, perhaps a bit more, through this extraordinary period. Thinking that the second half will be any less rocky and risky is asking for too much.

Still, it's easy to remain complacent. Looking at positive short-term changes in economic measures that are cut in half over longer stretches is reassuring. But climbing out of this hole will take time and the task faces many pitfalls. It's only human to minimize the potential hazards, but strategic-minded investors can't afford such luxuries. As we've arguing in The Beta Investment Report, the time for aggressive portfolio decisions was in this year's first quarter. From here on out, the money game is about to get much tougher.

This post has been republished from James Picerno's blog, The Capital Spectator.

Things To Look For In An Economic Tipping Point

Economist Mark Thoma from Economist's View discusses what to look for in an economic tipping point. He describes the specific conditions that will need to occur that will demonstrate that the economy is on solid footing and has the legs to generate self-sustaining growth. However, if these conditions do not occur, we may be looking at a double-dip recession. Continue reading to learn more.
One question I am asked fairly often is how we will know when the economy turns the corner and we are on our way to a solid recovery. My answer is that we will be able to detect upticks in the data, though this may come with a bit of a lag, the important but harder task will be to understand why the data are showing improvement.

In order to be convinced that the economy is on solid footing and headed to better times, I will want to see several things. First, though not necessarily foremost, that banks are being recapitalized with private sector funds, and that this is happening without the aid of government guarantees or other such programs that encourage capital infusions (which is hard to determine while the government programs are in place). Second, I will want to see private sector non-residential investment improving, another sign that private sector funds are moving back into circulation. Presently, this hasn't even started heading back upward, though there are signs the decline is slowing:



And there are other important factors too, e.g. consumption rebounding (though not to pre-crisis debt sustained levels), stabilization in housing markets, and so on. The point is that a self-sustaining recovery will require that the private sector be the primary driver of new economic activity, and that is what I will be looking for.

Once the economy does start to recover, the hard but critical part will be to determine how much of the recovery is self-sustaining (as it will be if private sector funds are driving the activity), and how much is being driven by government stimulus programs. If the recovery is self-sustaining, and we are fairly certain of that, then we can begin to carefully wind down the government programs supporting the economy. But if the recovery is mostly due to government stimulus and there is little sign that the financial and real sectors are attracting robust levels of private sector funds, then pulling back on government programs could be disastrous and plunge the economy right back into recession. In fact, in such a case, we may need to provide even more stimulus to fully bridge the gap until the private sector can support the economy on its own.

So, in answer to the question, we will have a pretty good idea when the economy turns the corner, but it will take awhile to determine why, and we cannot risk pulling back on government programs until we are sufficiently certain that the private sector can support normal economic activity without the government's help.

Update: Nouriel Roubini:

A Phantom Economic Recovery, by Nouriel Roubini, Commentary, Project Syndicate: Where is the US and global economy headed? ... Data from the US ... suggests that the US recession is not over yet. A similar analysis of many other advanced economies suggests that, as in the US, the bottom is quite close, but it has not yet been reached. ...

Moreover, for a number of reasons, growth in the advanced economies is likely to remain ... well below trend for at least a couple of years.

The first reason is...: Households need to deleverage and save more, which will constrain consumption for years.

Second, the financial system ... is severely damaged. Lack of robust credit growth will hamper private consumption and investment spending. Third, the corporate sector faces a glut of capacity... As a result, businesses are not likely to increase capital spending.

Fourth, the releveraging of the public sector through large fiscal deficits and debt accumulation risks crowding out a recovery in private sector spending. The effects of the policy stimulus, moreover, will fizzle out by early next year, requiring greater private demand to support continued growth. ...

There are ... two reasons to fear a double-dip recession. First, the exit strategy from monetary and fiscal easing could be botched, because policymakers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. ...

A second reason ... concerns the fact that oil, energy and food prices may be rising faster than economic fundamentals warrant, and could be driven higher by the wall of liquidity chasing assets, as well as by speculative demand. Last year, oil at $145 a barrel was a tipping point for the global economy... The global economy, barely rising from its knees, could not withstand the contractionary shock if similar speculative forces were to drive oil rapidly towards $100 a barrel.

So, the end of this severe global recession will be closer at the end of this year than it is now, the recovery will be anemic rather than robust..., and there is a rising risk of a double-dip recession. ...

This article has been republished from Mark Thoma's blog, Economist's View.

Why A 'Jobless Recovery' Is Likely

Yesterday the World Bank warned of a long and painful recovery in most developed economies, echoing Bernanke's hints of a "Jobless Recovery". Martin Hutchinson from Money Morning gives 4 reasons that suggest a painfully slow economic recovery. See his argument below.

When the Labor Department recently reported that U.S. payrolls fell by 345,000 jobs in May - the lowest total in eight months - commentators were suddenly spotting “green shoots” of economic recovery virtually everywhere they looked.

Given that more than $800 billion of federal money has been earmarked for U.S. “stimulus” projects, one would actually expect that the frightening job losses of the past six months would quickly reverse, and that the U.S. economy would soon start creating the 3 million jobs that U.S. President Barack Obama has promised.

Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

That’s not to say that the outlook is for a Great Depression, an economic reversal in which a country’s output plummets by 25% or more from its peak level. While the current U.S. recession may well be the “worst since the Great Depression,” it’s becoming clear that the peak-to-trough output decline will be something like 5% - worse than the recessions of 1973-75 and 1980-82, both of which saw output declines of about 3.5%, but not all that much worse.

After all, the money supply has not been allowed to collapse as it did during the 1930s and there has been no repetition of the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, though the “Buy America” provisions in the original stimulus outline and the corresponding “Buy China” provisions in China’s corresponding package indicate that “Smoot-Hawleyism” still lurks just beneath the surface.

However, the following four factors make it almost certain that the U.S. economy will be slow:

• Record-low interest rates make it impossible for the U.S. central bank to use rate cuts to jump-start growth.

• The huge U.S. budget deficit will force the federal government to continue its heavy borrowing - potentially “crowding out” private-sector players seeking loans to finance their own growth.

• The growing size and influence of the U.S. public sector.

• And an over-growth of government regulation.

Let’s consider each one.

First and foremost, the U.S. Federal Reserve has loosened money supply inordinately over the last year, with short-term interest rates at 0.00% and money supply growth at 15% per annum. Thus, there is no Fed loosening available to spur employment.

Interest-rate-sensitive sectors - especially housing and construction - are likely to remain depressed for years. These sectors are major employers of low-skilled and semi-skilled labor, which will not be picking up their normal slack.

A second adverse factor is the exceptionally large federal budget deficit - expected to reach $1.85 trillion, or 13% of the U.S. economy, in this year alone, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That deficit will stretch several years into the future, thanks to the stimulus package and various bailouts initiatives.

In the short term, these rescue-oriented provisions have helped U.S. employment, not the least by allowing federal and state governments to do some hiring. But in the longer term, the federal borrowing they have caused will restrict the private sector’s access to the capital markets. That will hinder small businesses in particular. Indeed, the private sector will find it difficult to fund capital expansion, and again the result is likely to be a dearth of hiring.

A third adverse factor is the expansion of the public sector itself. To some extent, it does not matter how budget deficits are financed; the important consideration is the transfer of resources from the private sector - allocated by the automatic optimization of the so-called “price mechanism” - into the public sector, where no such considerations apply.

It’s not just a question of government itself; it’s now clear, for example, that Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. (OTC: GMGMQ) are to be controlled by the government - with subsidies - at our expense.

When General Motors announces, as the company did Wednesday, that it will build automobiles on the basis of an assumed oil price of $100-$120 per barrel, one sees at once a politically motivated strategy; GM will cease making the large cars that in the past have been its principal source of profit. If oil prices average $50 or less, as is perfectly possible in a long period of sluggish global growth, General Motors will be a mess - and will need to be bailed out by us again.

The late William F. Buckley Jr. once claimed that 500 names chosen at random from the Boston telephone book could do a better job of running the country than Congress; I wouldn’t mind betting that such a random selection would also make a better job of running General Motors than the government.

Related to the growth in government is the growth in regulation. For example, President Obama’s “cap-and-trade” plan to address global warming will impose a new tranche of costs on the U.S. economy, without any great offsetting spurs to employment. In areas such as energy production and heavy industry, employment will be depressed by the additional cost burdens those areas bring, as well as by the simple difficulty of complying with the new regulations.

To see where a larger state sector and more regulation can lead, one need only look at the European Union (EU). Whereas U.S. unemployment was below 5% for much of the last decade, the lowest rate reached since 2000 was 8.8% in the EU. What’s more is that certain areas of the EU have much worse records than this.

In Spain, for example, unemployment was close to 20% for much of the 1980s and 1990s, and has now soared once again to no less than 18.2%. The EU is not ensconced in a Great Depression and Spain remains a relatively wealthy country; nevertheless, the rigidities in the European system are such that unemployment remains persistently high, with adverse social effect, such as the rioting in the Paris banlieus.

The European Commission (EC) recognized this problem as early as the 1980s, and has been gradually pushing Europe towards the more open U.S. labor market, with only moderate success.

Because of over-loose money, excessive budget deficits, growing government and impending regulation, it is thus unlikely that the U.S. economy and its job market will bounce back as quickly as it has in the past.

The investment “takeaway” from this is obvious, I fear: A substantial part of one’s money should be invested in the free-market economies of East Asia, where regulation and taxation are lower, so even though a recession has also hit, recovery is likely to be much more robust.

This article can also be viewed at Money Morning's investment news site.