Mark Twain: History Doesn't Repeat Itself....But it Does Rhyme. Gold, Vanderbilt and More

By John Mauldin

“The significant problems that we have created cannot be solved at the level of thinking we were at when we created them.”– Albert Einstein

“Generals are notorious for their tendency to ‘fight the last war’ – by using the strategies and tactics of the past to achieve victory in the present. Indeed, we all do this to some extent. Life's lessons are hard won, and we like to apply them – even when they don't apply. Sadly enough, fighting the last war is often a losing proposition. Conditions change. Objectives change. Strategies change. And you must change. If you don't, you lose.”– Dr. G. Terry Madonna and Dr. Michael Young

“Markets are perpetuating a serious error by acting on the belief that central bankers actually know what they are doing. They do not. Not because they are ill-intentioned but because they are human and subject to the limitations that apply to all human endeavors. If you want proof of their fallibility, simply look at their economic forecasts. Despite their efforts to do so, central banks can’t repeal the business cycle (though they can distort it). While the 2008 financial crisis should have taught them that lesson, it appears to have led them to precisely the opposite conclusion.

“There are limits to knowledge in every field, including the hard sciences, and economics is not a hard science; it is a social science whose knowledge is imprecise, and practitioners’ ability to predict the future is extremely limited. Fed officials are attempting to guide an extremely complex economy with tools of questionable utility, and markets are ignoring their warnings that their ability to manage a positive outcome is highly uncertain. Markets are confusing what they want to happen with what is likely to happen, a common psychological phenomenon. Investors who prosper in the long run will be those who acknowledge the severe limits of economic knowledge and the compelling evidence that trillions of dollars of QE and years of zero interest rates may have saved the system from immediate collapse five years ago but failed to produce sustained economic growth or long-term price stability.”– Michael Lewitt, The Credit Strategist, Nov. 1, 2014

As I predicted months ago in this letter and last year in Code Red, the Japanese have launched another missile in their ongoing currency war, somewhat fittingly on Halloween. Rather than being spooked, the markets saw it as just another round of feel good quantitative easing and climbed to all-time highs on the Dow and S&P 500. The Nikkei soared even more (for good reason). As we will see later in this letter, this is not your father’s quantitative easing. The Japanese, for reasons of their own, will intervene not only in their own equity markets but in foreign equity markets as well, and do so in a size and manner that will be significant. This gambit is going to have ramifications far beyond merely weakening the yen. In this week’s letter we are going to take an in depth look at what the Japanese have done.

It is something of a cliché to quote Mark Twain’s “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” But it is an appropriate way to kick things off, since we are going to look at the “ancient” history of Mark Twain’s era, and specifically the Panic of 1873. That October saw the beginning of 65 months of recession (certainly longer than our generation’s own Great Recession), which inflicted massive pain on the country. The initial cause was government monetary intervention, but the crisis was deepened by soaring debt and deflation.
As we seek to understand what happened 141 years ago, we’ll revisit the phenomenon of October as a month of negative market surprises. It actually has its roots in the interplay between farming and banking.

The Panic of 1873

Shortly after the Civil War, which saw the enactment of federal fiat money (the “greenback” of that era, issued to finance the war), there was a federal law passed that required rural and agricultural banks to keep 25% of their deposits with certain certified national banks, which were based mainly in New York. The national banks were required to pay interest on those deposits, so they had to put the money out for loans. But because those deposits were “callable” at any time, there was a limit to the types of loans they could do, as long-term loans mismatched assets and liabilities.

The brokers of the New York Stock Exchange were considered an excellent target for such loans. They could use the proceeds of the loans as margin to buy stocks, either for their own trading or on behalf of their clients. As long as the stocks went up – or at the very least as long as the ultimate clients were liquid – there wasn’t a problem for the national banks. Money could be repatriated; or, if necessary, margins could be called in a day. But this was before the era of a central bank, so actual physical dollars (and other physical instruments) were involved as reserves, as was gold. Greenbacks could be used to buy gold, but at a rate that floated. The price of gold could fluctuate significantly from year to year, depending upon the availability of gold and the supply of greenbacks (and of course, market sentiment – which certainly rhymes with our own time).

The driver for October volatility was an annual cycle, an ebb and flow of dollars to and from these rural banks. In the fall when the harvest was ready, the country banks would recall their margin loans in order to pay farmers or loan to merchants to buy crops from farmers and ship them via the railroads. Money would then become tight on Wall Street as the national banks called their loans back in.

This cycle often caused extra volatility, depending on the shortness of loan capital. Margin rates could rise to as much as 1% per day! Of course, this would force speculators to sell their stocks or cover their shorts, but in general it could drive down prices and make margin calls more likely. This monetary tightening often sent stocks into a downward spiral – not unlike the downward pressure that present-day Fed tightening actions have exerted, but in a compressed period of time.

If there was enough leverage in the system, a cascade could result, with stocks dropping 20% very quickly. Since much of Wall Street was involved in railroads, and railroads were nothing if not leveraged loans and capital, falling asset prices would reduce the ability of investors in railroads to find the necessary capital for expansion and maintenance of operations.

This historical pattern no longer explains the present-day vulnerability of markets in October. Perhaps the phenomenon persists simply due to market lore and investor psychology. Like an amputee feeling a twinge in his lost limb, do we still sense the ghosts of crashes past?

(And once more with Mark Twain: “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.”)

It was in this fall environment that a young Jay Gould decided to manipulate the gold market in the autumn of 1873, creating a further squeeze on the dollar. Not only would he profit off a play in gold, but he thought the move would help him in his quest to take control of the Erie Railroad. Historian Charles R. Morris explains, in a fascinating book called The Tycoons

Gould’s mind ran in labyrinthine channels, and he turned to the gold markets as part of a strategy to improve Erie’s freights. Grain was America’s largest export in 1869. Merchants purchased grain from farmers on credit, shipped it overseas, and paid off the farmers when they received their remittances from abroad. Their debt to the farmers was in greenbacks, but their receipts from abroad came in gold, for the greenback was not legal tender overseas. It could take weeks, or even months, to complete a transaction, so the merchant was exposed to changes in the gold/greenback exchange rate during that time. If gold fell (or the greenback rose), the merchant’s gold proceeds might not cover his greenback debts.

The New York Gold Exchange was created to help merchants protect against that risk. Using the Exchange, a merchant could borrow gold when he made his contract, convert it to greenbacks, and pay off his suppliers right away. Then he would pay off the gold loan when his gold payment came in some weeks later; since it was gold for gold, exchange rates didn’t matter. To protect against default, the Exchange required full cash collateral to borrow gold. But that was an opening for speculations by clever traders like Gould. If a trader bought gold and then immediately lent it, he could finance his purchase with the cash collateral and thereby acquire large positions while using very little of his own cash.

[Note from JM: In the fall there was plenty of demand for gold and a shortage of greenbacks. It was the perfect time if you wanted to create a “corner” on gold.]

Gould reasoned that if he could force up the price of gold, he might improve the Erie’s freight revenues. If gold bought more greenbacks, greenback-priced wheat would look cheaper to overseas buyers, so exports, and freights, would rise. And because of the fledgling status of the new Gold Exchange, gold prices looked eminently manipulable, since only about $20 million in gold was usually available in New York. [Some of his partners in the conspiracy were skeptical because…] The Grant administration, which had just taken office in March, was sitting on $100 million in gold reserves. If gold started suddenly rising, it would hurt merchant importers, who could be expected to clamor for government gold sales.

So Gould went to President Grant’s brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, who liked to brag about his family influence. He set up a meeting with President Grant, at which Gould learned that Grant was cautious about any significant movements in either the gold or the greenback, noting the “fictitiousness about the prosperity of the country and that the bubble might be tapped in one way as well as another.” That was discouraging: popping a bubble meant tighter money and lower gold.

But Gould plunged ahead with his gold buying, including rather sizable amounts for Corbin’s wife (Grant’s wife’s sister), such that each one-dollar rise in gold would generate $11,000 in profits. Corbin arranged further meetings with Grant and discouraged him from selling gold all throughout September.

Gould and his partners initiated a “corner” in the gold market. This was actually legal at the time, and the NY gold market was relatively small compared to the amount of capital it was possible for a large, well-organized cabal to command. True corners were devastating to bears, as they generally borrowed shares or gold to sell short, betting on the fall in price. Just as today, if the price falls too much, then the short seller can buy the stock back and take his losses. But if there is no stock to buy back, if someone has cornered the market, then losses can be severe. Which of course is what today we call a short squeeze.

The short position grew to some $200 million, most of it owed to Gould and his friends. But there was only $20 million worth of gold available to cover the short sales. That gold stock had been borrowed and borrowed and borrowed again. The price of gold rose as Gould’s cabal kept pressing their bet.

But Grant got wind of the move. His wife wrote her sister, demanding to know if the rumor of their involvement was true. Corbin panicked and told Gould he wanted out, with his $100,000+ of profits, of course. Gould promised him his profits if he would just keep quiet.

Then Gould began to unload all his gold positions, even as some of his partners kept right on buying. You have to keep up pretenses, of course. Gould was telling his partners to push the price up to 160, while he was selling through another set of partners.

It is a small irony that Gould also had a contact in the government in Washington (a Mr. Butterfield) who assured him that there was no move to sell gold from DC, even as that contact was personally selling all his gold as fast as he could. Whatever bad you could say about Gould (and there were lots of bad things you could say), his trading instincts were good. He sensed his contact was lying and doubled down on getting out of the trade. In the end, Gould didn’t make any money to speak of and in fact damaged his intention of getting control of the Erie Railroad that fall.

The attempted gold corner didn’t do much harm to the country in and of itself. But when President Grant decided to step in and sell gold, there was massive buying, which sucked a significant quantity of physical dollars out of the market and into the US Treasury at a time when dollars were short. This move was a clumsy precursor to the open-market operations of the Federal Reserve of today, except that those dollars were needed as margin collateral by brokerage companies. No less than 14 New York Stock Exchange brokerages went bankrupt within a few days, not including brokerages that dealt just in gold.

All this happened in the fall, when there were fewer physical dollars to be had.

The price of gold collapsed. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was often at odds with Jay Gould, had to step into the market (literally – that is, physically, which was rare for him) in order to quell the panic and provide capital, a precursor to J.P. Morgan’s doing the same during the Panic of 1907.

While many today believe the Fed should never have been created, we have not lived through those periods of panics and crashes. And while I think the Fed now acts in ways that are inappropriate (how can 12 FOMC board members purport to fine-tune an economic cycle, let alone solve employment problems?), the one true and proper role of the Fed is to provide liquidity in time of a crisis.

“People Who Live Too Much on Credit”

At the end of the day, it was too much debt that was the problem in 1873. Cornelius Vanderbilt was quoted in the epic book The First Tycoon as saying (emphasis mine)

I’ll tell you what’s the matter – people undertake to do about four times as much business as they can legitimately undertake.… There are a great many worthless railroads started in this country without any means to carry them through. Respectable banking houses in New York, so called, make themselves agents for sale of the bonds of the railroads in question and give a kind of moral guarantee of their genuineness. The bonds soon reach Europe, and the markets of their commercial centres, from the character of the endorsers, are soon flooded with them.… When I have some money I buy railroad stock or something else, but I don’t buy on credit. I pay for what I get. People who live too much on credit generally get brought up with a round turn in the long run. The Wall Street averages ruin many a man there, and is like faro.”

In the wake of Gould’s shenanigans, President Grant came to New York to assess the damage; and eventually his Secretary of the Treasury decided to buy $30 million of bonds in a less clumsy precursor to Federal Reserve open market operations, trying to inject some liquidity back into the markets. This was done largely as a consequence of a conversation with Vanderbilt, who offered to put up $10 million of his own, a vast sum at the time.

But the damage was done. The problem of liquidity was created by too much debt, as Vanderbilt noted. That debt inflated assets, and when those assets fell in price, so did the net worth of the borrowers. Far too much debt had to be worked off, and the asset price crash precipitated a rather deep depression, leaving in its wake far greater devastation than the recent Great Recession did. It took many years for the deleveraging process to work out. Sound familiar?

To continue reading this article from Thoughts from the Frontline – a free weekly publication by John Mauldin, renowned financial expert, best-selling author, and Chairman of Mauldin Economics – please click here.

Important Disclosures

The article Thoughts from the Frontline: Rhyme and Reason was originally published at mauldin economics

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Hoisington Investment Management Quarterly Review and Outlook, First Quarter 2014

By John Mauldin

In today’s Outside the Box, Lacy Hunt and Van Hoisington of Hoisington Investment have the temerity to point out that since the Great Recession officially ended in 2009, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has been consistently overoptimistic in its projections of U.S. growth. They simply expected QE to be more stimulative than it has been, to the tune of about 6% over the past four years – a total of about $1 trillion that never materialized.

Given that dismal track record, our authors ask why we should believe the Fed’s prediction of 2.9% real GDP growth for 2014 and 3.4% for 2015 – particularly with QE being tapered into nonexistence. A big part of the reason the Fed has been so steadily wrong, say Lacy and Van, is its overreliance on the so-called “wealth effect,” which posits that an increase in consumer wealth – through higher stock prices or home values, for instance – will lead to increased consumer spending.

The wealth effect has been both a justification for quantitative easing and a root cause of consistent overly optimistic growth expectations by the FOMC. The research cited below suggests that the concept of a wealth effect is in fact deeply flawed. It is unfortunate that the FOMC has relied on this flawed concept to experiment with over $3 trillion in asset purchases and continues to use it as the basis for what we believe are overly optimistic growth expectations.

The effect isn’t completely absent, say the authors, but their research suggests that it may five to ten times weaker than the Fed assumes. Go figure.

Hoisington Investment Management Company (www.Hoisingtonmgt.com) is a registered investment advisor specializing in fixed-income portfolios for large institutional clients. Located in Austin, Texas, the firm has over $5 billion under management and is the sub-adviser of the Wasatch-Hoisington U.S. Treasury Fund (WHOSX).

It is been a busy day for me here in Dallas. Besides nonstop meetings and conversations and my usual reading, I had the privilege of going to the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve and watching President Richard Fisher make loans to a group of budding entrepreneurs to build lemonade stands. It is part of a fabulous organization called Lemonade Day. The basic concept is to enable young children to learn about entrepreneurship and capitalism by helping them launch a lemonade stand. Youth who register are taught 14 lessons from their entrepreneurial workbook, with either a parent, teacher, youth organization leader, or other adult mentor supervising. At the conclusions of the lessons, they are prepared to open their first business… a lemonade stand. Local businesses and banks volunteer to empower these kids by making them a $50 loan and helping them set up their business. By the time they come to talk with the “banker,” they have a business plan and a set of goals as to what they will do with them profits they make. Watching these kids respond to adults asking them about their plans brings joy to your heart.

On May 4, in some 35 cities across the country, 200,000 young people will be building lemonade stands and trying to turn a profit. If you drive by a lemonade stand, stop and support America’s future entrepreneurs. If you are in one of those 35 cities (click here to find out), make a point to find a few lemonade stands and support America’s future. And if you don’t have a lemonade stand in your city, consider following in the footsteps of local heroes (and my good friends) Reid Walker and Robert Alpert, who decided to launch Lemonade Day here in Dallas. This should be a spring ritual in every city in the country.

Buoyed by the kids and their enthusiasm, I then went to dinner with Richard Fisher and Woody Brock and a few other associates of Ray Hunt, who hosted us for a fabulous and thought-provoking session, talking economics, geopolitics, and even a little politics. There was an interesting mix of pessimism and optimism in the room about the future of our country, but there was not a person who was not concerned with the direction in which we are headed. Gerald Turner, the president of SMU, talked to us about how fiscally conservative and socially liberal his students are. That kind of mirrors my own children. The world is changing faster, both technologically and demographically, than many of us in the Boomer generation are comfortable with. But we’d better get used to it.

It’s been a tumultuous last few days, and tomorrow morning I have to leave early for San Francisco to do a video shoot with my partners at Altegris, before going right back to the airport and flying home to speak to a local group of investment advisers and brokers brought together by Peak Capital Management. It is late and time to hit the send button, because the alarm clock will go off early. Have a great week
Your wondering where all the time goes analyst,

John Mauldin, Editor
Outside the Box

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Hoisington Investment Management – Quarterly Review and Outlook, First Quarter 2014

 

Optimism at the FOMC

 

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has continuously been overly optimistic regarding its expectations for economic growth in the United States since the last recession ended in 2009. If their annual forecasts had been realized over the past four years, then at the end of 2013 the U.S. economy should have been approximately $1 trillion, or 6%, larger. The preponderance of research suggests that the FOMC has been incorrect in its presumption of the effectiveness of quantitative easing (QE) on boosting economic growth. This faulty track record calls into question their latest prediction of 2.9% real GDP growth for 2014 and 3.4% for 2015.

A major reason for the FOMC’s overly optimistic forecast for economic growth and its incorrect view of the effectiveness of quantitative easing is the reliance on the so-called “wealth effect”, described as a change in consumer wealth which results in a change in consumer spending. In an opinion column for The Washington Post on November 5, 2010, then FOMC chairman Ben Bernanke wrote, “...higher stock prices will boost consumer wealth and help increase confidence, which can also spur spending. Increased spending will lead to higher incomes and profits that, in a virtuous circle, will further support economic expansion.” Former FOMC chairman Alan Greenspan in a CNBC interview on Feb. 15, 2013 said, “The stock market is the key player in the game of economic growth.” This year, in the January 20 issue of Time Magazine, the current FOMC chair, Janet Yellen said, “And part of the [economic stimulus] comes through higher house and stock prices, which causes people with homes and stocks to spend more, which causes jobs to be created throughout the economy and income to go up throughout the economy.”

FOMC leaders may feel justified in taking such a position based upon the FRB/US, a large- scale econometric model. In part of this model, employed by the FOMC in their decision making, household consumption behavior is expressed as a function of total wealth as well as other variables. The model predicts that an increase in wealth of one dollar will boost consumer spending by five to ten cents (see page 8-9 “Housing Wealth and Consumption” by Matteo Iacoviello, International Finance Discussion Papers, #1027, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, August 2011). Even at the lower end of their model's range this wealth effect, if it were valid, would be a powerful factor in spurring economic growth.

After examining much of the latest scholarly research, and conducting in house research on the link between household wealth and spending, we found the wealth effect to be much weaker than the FOMC presumes. In fact, it is difficult to document any consistent impact with most of the research pointing to a spending increase of only one cent per one dollar rise in wealth at best. Some studies even indicate that the wealth effect is only an interesting theory and cannot be observed in practice.

The wealth effect has been both a justification for quantitative easing and a root cause of consistent overly optimistic growth expectations by the FOMC. The research cited below suggests that the concept of a wealth effect is in fact deeply flawed. It is unfortunate that the FOMC has relied on this flawed concept to experiment with over $3 trillion in asset purchases and continues to use it as the basis for what we believe are overly optimistic growth expectations.

Consumer Wealth and Consumer Spending

 

Many episodes of rising and falling financial and housing asset wealth have occurred throughout history. The question is whether these periods of wealth changes are associated in a consistent and reliable way with changes in consumer spending. We examined, separately, percent changes in real consumption expenditures per capita against percent changes in the real S&P 500 index (financial wealth) and against percent changes in Robert Shiller’s real home price index (housing wealth). If economic relationships are valid they should work for all time periods, regardless of highly different idiosyncratic conditions, as opposed to an isolated subset of historical experience. As such, we conducted our analysis from 1930 through 2013, the entire time period for which all variables were available.

Financial Wealth. Chart 1 is a scatter diagram of current percent changes in both real per capita personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the preferred measure of spending, and the real S&P 500 stock price index. It is made up of 84 dots, which constitutes a robust sample. Over our sample period, as with most extremely long periods, time will tend to link economic variables to each other; population is a key factor that can cause such an association. By expressing consumption in per capita terms, trending has been reduced, and in turn, an artificially overstated degree of correlation has been avoided.



If financial wealth drives consumer spending, an unambiguous positively sloped line should be evident on this scatter diagram. Larger gains in the S&P 500 would be associated with faster increases in spending; conversely, declines in the S&P 500 would be tied to lower spending. If there was a strong positive correlation, the large gains in stock prices would be associated with strong gains in spending, and they would fall in the upper right quadrant of the graph. In addition, sizeable declines in the S&P would be associated with large decreases in consumer spending, and the dots would fall in the lower left quadrant, resulting in an upward sloping line. For the relationship to be stable and dependable the dots should be packed in an around the trend line. This is clearly not the case. The trend line through the dots is positive, but the observations in the upper left quadrant of the graph and those in the lower right exhibit a negative rather than positive correlation. Furthermore, the dots are not clustered close to the trend line. The goodness of fit (coefficient of determination) of 0.27 is statistically significant; however, the slope of the line is minimally positive. This suggests that an approximate one dollar increase in wealth will boost real per capita PCE by less than one cent, far less than even the lower band of the effect in the Fed’s model.

Theoretically, lagged changes are preferred because when current or coincidental changes in economic variables are correlated the coefficients may be biased due to some other factor not covered by the empirical estimation. Also, lags give households time to adjust to their change in wealth. As such, we correlated the current percent change in real per capita PCE against current changes as well as one and two year lagged changes (expressed as a three-year moving average) in the S&P 500. The lags did not improve the goodness of fit as the coefficient of determination fell to 0.21. An increased dollar of wealth, however, still resulted in a one cent increase in consumption. We then correlated current percent change in real per capita PCE with only lagged changes in the real S&P 500 for the two prior years (expressed as a two year moving average), and the relationship completely fell apart as the goodness of fit fell to a statistically insignificant 0.06.

Housing Wealth. Chart 2 is a second scatter diagram, relating current percent changes in real home prices to current percent changes in real per capita PCE. Once again, the trend line does have a small positive slope, but there are so many observations in the upper left quadrant that the coefficient of determination does not meet robust tests for statistical significance. The dots are even more dispersed from the trend line than in the prior scatter diagram.



As with the analysis on financial wealth, when current changes in consumption were correlated against the lagged changes in home prices (both the three-year moving average and the two-year moving average), the goodness of fit deteriorated significantly and was not statistically significant in either case.

Correlations, or the lack thereof, indicated by these scatter diagrams do not prove causation. Nevertheless, economic theory offers an explanation for the poor correlation. If a person has an appreciated asset and wishes to increase spending, one option is to sell the asset, capture the gain and buy something else.

However, the funds to make the new purchase comes from the buyer of the asset. Thus, when financial assets are sold, money balances increase for the seller but fall for the buyer. The person with an appreciated asset could choose to borrow against that asset. Since new debt is current spending in lieu of future spending, the debt option may only provide a temporary boost to economic activity. To avoid an accentuated business cycle, debt must generate an income stream to repay principal and interest. Otherwise any increase in debt to convert wealth gains into consumer spending may merely add to cyclical volatility without producing any lasting benefit.

Scholarly Research

 

Scholarly research has debated the impact of financial and housing wealth on consumer spending as well. The academic research on financial wealth is relatively consistent; it has very little impact on consumption. In “Financial Wealth Effect: Evidence from Threshold Estimation” (Applied Economic Letters, 2011), Sherif Khalifa, Ousmane Seck and Elwin Tobing found “a threshold income level of almost $130,000, below which the financial wealth effect is insignificant, and above which the effect is 0.004.” This means a one dollar rise in wealth would, in time, boost consumption by less than one-half of a penny. Similarly, in “Wealth Effects Revisited 1975- 2012,” Karl E. Case, John M. Quigley and Robert J. Shiller (Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper #1884, December 2012) write, “The numerical results vary somewhat with different econometric specifications, and so any numerical conclusion must be tentative. We find at best weak evidence of a link between stock market wealth and consumption.” This team looked at quarterly observations during the 17 year period from 1982 through 1999 and the 37-year period from 1975 through the spring quarter of 2012.

The research on housing wealth is more divided. In the same paper referenced above, Karl E. Case, John M. Quigley and Robert J. Shiller write, “In contrast, we do find strong evidence that variations in housing market wealth have important effects upon consumption.” These findings differ from the findings of various other economists. In “The (Mythical?) Housing Wealth Effect” (NBER Working Paper #15075, June 2009), Charles Calomiris, Stanley D. Longhofer and William Miles write, “Models used to guide policy, as well as some empirical studies, suggest that the effect of housing wealth on consumption is large and greater than the wealth effect on consumption from stock holdings. Recent theoretical work, in contrast, argues that changes in housing wealth are offset by changes in housing consumption, meaning that unexpected shocks in housing wealth should have little effect on non housing consumption.”

Furthermore, R. Glenn Hubbard and Anthony Patrick O’Brien (Macroneconomics, Fourth edition, 2013, page 381) provide a highly cogent summary of the aforementioned research by Charles Calomiris, Stanley D. Longhofer and William Miles. They argue that consumers “own houses primarily so they can consume the housing services a home provides. Only consumers who intend to sell their current house and buy a smaller one – for example, ‘empty nesters’ whose children have left home – will benefit from an increase in housing prices. But taking the population as a whole, the number of empty nesters may be smaller than the number of first time home buyers plus the number of homeowners who want to buy larger houses. These two groups are hurt by rising home prices.”

Amir Sufi, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, also indicates that the effect of housing wealth is much smaller than assumed in the policy models and earlier empirical research. Dr. Sufi calculates that an increase of one dollar of housing wealth may yield as little as one cent of extra spending (“Will Housing Save the U.S. Economy?”, April 2013, Chicago Booth Economic Outlook event). This is in line with a 2013 study by Sherif Khalifa, Ousmane Seck and Elwin Tobing (“Housing Wealth Effect: Evidence from Threshold Estimation”, The Journal of Housing Economics). These economists found that a threshold income level of $74,046 had a wealth coefficient that rounded to one cent. Income levels between $74,046 and $501,000 had a two cent coefficient, and incomes above $501,000 had a statistically insignificant coefficient.

In total, the majority of the research is seemingly unequivocal in its conclusion. The wealth effect (financial and housing) is barely operative. As such, it is interesting to note its actual impact in 2013.

Where Was the Wealth Effect in 2013?

 

If the wealth effect was as powerful as the FOMC believes, consumer spending should have turned in a stellar performance last year. In 2013 equities and housing posted strong gains. On a yearly average basis, the real S&P 500 stock market index increase was 17.7%, and the real Case Shiller Home Price Index increase was 9.1%. The combined gain of these wealth proxies was 26.8%, the eighth largest in the 84 years of data. The real per capital PCE gain of just 1.2% ranked 58th of 84. The difference between the two was the fifth largest in the 84 cases. Such a huge discrepancy in relative performance in 2013, occurring as it did in the fourth year of an economic expansion, raises serious doubts about the efficacy of the wealth effect (Chart 3).



In econometrics, theoretical propositions must be empirically verifiable. Researchers using numerous statistical procedures examining various sample periods should be able to identify at least some consistent patterns. This is not the case with the wealth effect. Regardless if examining a simple scatter diagram or something far more sophisticated, the wealth effect is weak and inconsistent. The powerful wealth coefficients imbedded in the FRB/US model have not been supported by independent research. To quote Chris Low, Chief Economist of FTN (FTN Financial, Economic Weekly, March 21, 2014), “There may not be a wealth effect at all. If there is a wealth effect, it is very difficult to pin down ...” Since the FOMC began quantitative easing in 2009, its balance sheet has increased more than $3 trillion. This increase may have boosted wealth, but the U.S. economy received no meaningful benefit. Furthermore, the FOMC has no idea what the ultimate outcome of such an increase will be or what a return to a ‘normal’ balance sheet might entail. Given all of this, we do not see any evidence for economic growth as robust at the FOMC predicts.
Without a wealth effect, the stock market is not the “key player” in the economy, and no “virtuous circle” runs through the stock market. We reiterate our view that nominal GDP will rise just 3% this year, down from 3.4% in 2013. M2 growth in the latest twelve months was 5.8%, but velocity should decline by at least 3% and limit nominal GDP to 3% or less.

 

The Flatter Yield Curve: An Opportunity for Treasury Bond Investors

 

The Fed has indicated that the federal funds rate could begin to rise in the next couple of years, and the Treasury market has moderately anticipated this event. Similar to the 2004-2005 federal funds rate cycle, long before the federal funds rate increased short Treasury rates began their ascent (Chart 4). Interestingly, once the federal funds rate did begin to rise in 2004, long Treasury rates fell over the next two years. From May of 2004 until Feb. 2006 the federal funds rate increased by 350 basis point (bps) and the five-year note increased by 80 bps, yet the 30-year bond fell by 84 bps as inflation expectations fell. If the Fed follows through with its forecast and short rates rise, the dampening effect on inflation expectations should again cause long rates to fall. On the other hand, should economic activity continue to moderate then the downward pressure on inflation will continue. The prospect for lower Treasury yields appears favorable.

Van R. Hoisington
Lacy H. Hunt, Ph.D.

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The article Outside the Box: Hoisington Investment Management Quarterly Review and Outlook, First Quarter 2014 was originally published at Mauldin Economics

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Every Central Bank for Itself

By John Mauldin

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

– Mike Tyson

For the last 25 days I’ve been traveling in Argentina and South Africa, two countries whose economies can only be described as fragile, though for very different reasons. Emerging market countries face a significantly different set of challenges than the developed world does. These challenges are compounded by the rather indifferent policies of developed world central banks, which are (even if somewhat understandably) entirely self centered. Argentina has brought its problems upon itself, but South Africa can somewhat justifiably express frustration at the developed world, which, as one emerging market central bank leader suggests, is engaged in a covert currency war, one where the casualties are the result of unintended consequences. But the effects are nonetheless real if you’re an emerging market country.

While I will write a little more about my experience in South Africa at the end of this letter, first I want to cover the entire emerging market landscape to give us some context. Full and fair disclosure requires that I give a great deal of credit to my rather brilliant young associate, Worth Wray, who’s helped me pull together a great deal of this letter while I am on the road in a very busy speaking tour here in South Africa for Glacier, a local platform intermediary. They have afforded me the opportunity to meet with a significant number of financial industry participants and local businessman, at all levels of society. It has been a very serious learning experience for me. But more on that later; let’s think now about the problems facing emerging markets in general.

Every Central Bank for Itself

Every general has a plan before going into battle, which immediately begins to change upon contact with the enemy. Everyone has a plan until they get hit… and emerging markets have already taken a couple of punches since May 2013, when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke first signaled his intent to “taper” his quantitative easing program and thereby incrementally wean the markets off of their steady drip of easy money. It was not too long after that Ben also suggested that he was not responsible for the problems of emerging-market central banks – or any other central bank, for that matter.

As my friend Ben Hunt wrote back in late January, Chairman Bernanke turned a single data point into a line during his last months in office, when he decided to taper by exactly $10 billion per month. He established the trend, and now the markets are reacting as if the Fed's exit strategy has officially begun.

Whether the FOMC can actually turn the taper into a true exit strategy ultimately depends on how much longer households and businesses must deleverage and how sharply our old age dependency ratio rises, but markets seem to believe this is the beginning of the end. For now, that’s what matters most.

Under Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s leadership, the Fed continues to send a clear message to the rest of the world: Now it really is every central bank for itself. 

The QE-Induced Bubble Boom in Emerging Markets

By trying to shore up their rich-world economies with unconventional policies such as ultra low rate targets, outright balance sheet expansion, and aggressive forward guidance, major central banks have distorted international real interest rate differentials and forced savers to seek out higher (and far riskier) returns for more than five years.

This initiative has fueled enormous overinvestment and capital misallocation – and not just in advanced economies like the United States.

As it turns out, the biggest QE-induced imbalances may be in emerging markets, where, even in the face of deteriorating fundamentals, accumulated capital inflows (excluding China) have nearly DOUBLED, from roughly $5 trillion in 2009 to nearly $10 trillion today. After such a dramatic rise in developed world portfolio allocations and direct lending to emerging markets, developed world investors now hold roughly one third of all emerging market stocks by market capitalization and also about one third of all outstanding emerging market bonds.

The Fed might as well have aimed its big bazooka right at the emerging world. That’s where a lot of the easy money ran blindly in search of more attractive real interest rates, bolstered by a broadly accepted growth story.

The conventional wisdom – a particularly powerful narrative that became commonplace in the media – suggested that emerging markets were, for the first time in a long time, less risky than developed markets, despite their having displayed much higher volatility throughout the past several decades.

As a general rule, people believed emerging markets had much lower levels of government debt, much stronger prospects for consumption led growth, and far more favorable demographics. (They overlooked the fact that crises in the 1980s and 1990s still limited EM borrowing limits until 2009 and ignored the fact that EM consumption is a derivative of demand and investment from the developed world.)

Instead of holding traditional safe haven bonds like US treasuries or German bunds, some strategists (who shall not be named) even suggested that emerging market government bonds could be the new safe haven in the event of major sovereign debt crises in the developed world. And better yet, it was suggested that denominating these investments in local currencies would provide extra returns over time as EM currencies appreciated against their developed market peers.

Sadly, the conventional wisdom about emerging markets and their currencies was dead wrong. Herd money (typically momentum based, yield chasing investors) usually chases growth that has already happened and almost always overstays its welcome. This is the same disappointing boom/bust dynamic that happened in Latin America in the early 1980s and Southeast Asia in the mid 1990s. And this time, it seems the spillover from extreme monetary accommodation in advanced countries has allowed public and private borrowers to leverage well past their natural carrying capacity.

Anatomy of a “Balance of Payments” Crisis

The lesson is always the same, and it is hard to avoid. Economic miracles are almost always too good to be true. Whether we’re talking about the Italian miracle of the ’50s, the Latin American miracle of the ’80s, the Asian Tiger miracles of the ’90s, or the housing boom in the developed world (the US, Ireland, Spain, et al.) in the ’00s, they all have two things in common: construction (building booms, etc.) and excessive leverage. As a quick aside, does that remind you of anything happening in China these days?

Just saying…...Broad based, debt fueled overinvestment may appear to kick economic growth into overdrive for a while; but eventually disappointing returns and consequent selling lead to investment losses, defaults, and banking panics. And in cases where foreign capital seeking strong growth in already highly valued assets drives the investment boom, the miracle often ends with capital flight and currency collapse.

Economists call that dynamic of inflow induced booms followed by outflow induced currency crises a “balance of payments cycle,” and it tends to occur in three distinct phases.

In the first phase, an economic boom attracts foreign capital, which generally flows toward productive uses and reaps attractive returns from an appreciating currency and rising asset prices. In turn, those profits fuel a self-reinforcing cycle of foreign capital inflows, rising asset prices, and a strengthening currency.

In the second phase, the allure of promising recent returns morphs into a growth story and attracts ever stronger capital inflows – even as the boom begins to fade and the strong currency starts to drag on competitiveness. Capital piles into unproductive uses and fuels overinvestment, overconsumption, or both; so that ever more inefficient economic growth increasingly depends on foreign capital inflows. Eventually, the system becomes so unstable that anything from signs of weak earnings growth to an unanticipated rate hike somewhere else in the world can trigger a shift in sentiment and precipitous capital flight.

To continue reading this article from Thoughts from the Frontline – a free weekly publication by John Mauldin, renowned financial expert, best-selling author, and Chairman of Mauldin Economics – Please Click Here.

The article Thoughts from the Frontline: "Every Central Bank for Itself" was originally published at Mauldin Economics

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The Market Continues The FOMC March Upward

With the election over and congress divided, it may be difficult for the president to get much done. None of this will take affect until the near year but traders are asking the big question… Will the government work together as a team or will it be a stalemate?

Today’s whipsaw action after the FOMC statement shook things up as it always does. We saw gold, silver, the dollar, SP500 and bond prices go haywire. It took about 30 minutes for the market to digest this news in that time a lot of people lost money because of the wide price swings. Trading around news, I find, is a net losing trade over the long run and I advise never to do it. Rather wait for a trend to form and trade any low risk setups that come your way.

I truly believe that the market has already priced in most news and events which unfold, and that news tends to agree with the overall trend of the market. Of course there will be short term blips on the charts from the news, but they tend to be minor setbacks in the underlying market trend. That being said, the trend is our friend, and while so many are trying to pick a top in the equities market it makes me cringe because they are fighting the trend and the Fed.

Successful trading is done by trading the trend, and during choppy times you may get roughed up a bit and need to alter your strategy for shorter term momentum play, but overall you gotta’ stick with the trend until proven wrong. Once the trend reverses and confirms, only then can you start shorting the market.

Last week we took another long position near the lows on the SP500 as it dipped down to key support with the market internals confirming our entry. This low risk setup gets us into a market at an extreme, meaning we are in the money usually within hours of entry and the market tends to keep well above our entry point until its ready for another surge higher or a break down.

I agree with those of you who think the market is WAY over bought and due for a strong pullback, and I find myself squirming in my chair when I take another long position way up here in the lofty SP500 prices. But over the years I have found that if it’s hard to pull the trigger, then it should be a good trade if all the trading rules have been met, and if it’s a clear chart setup (meaning an easy looking trade) you better watch out!

This chart shows two charts, one of the 10 minute intraday chart covering 6 trading sessions.




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Stock Market Commentary For Monday Morning

The December NASDAQ 100 was lower overnight due to profit taking as it consolidates some of last Thursday's rally but remains above the 20-day moving average crossing at 1301.15. Stochastics and the RSI remain bullish signaling that sideways to higher prices are possible near term. Closes above the October 14th reaction high crossing at 1499.00 are needed to confirm that a bottom has been posted. If December renews this fall's decline, the 87% retracement level of the 2002-2007-rally crossing at 979.90 is the next downside target. The December NASDAQ 100 was down 3.50 pts. at 1333.50 as of 5:52 AM CST. First resistance is last Friday's high crossing at 1361.25. Second resistance is the reaction high crossing at 1364.25. First support is the 20-day moving average crossing at 1301.15. Second support is the 10-day moving average crossing at 1276.45. Overnight action sets the stage for a lower opening by December NASDAQ 100 when the day session begins later this morning.

The December S&P 500 index was slightly higher overnight as it consolidates above the 20-day moving average crossing at 941.00. Last week's breakout above this resistance level signals that a larger-degree short covering rally into early-November appears to be unfolding. Stochastics and the RSI remain bullish signaling that sideways to higher prices are possible near-term. However, it will take closes above the October 14th reaction high crossing at 1066.50 to confirm that a bottom has been posted. If December renews this fall's decline, the March 2003 low crossing at 787.50 is the next downside target. First resistance is last Friday's high crossing at 984.00. Second resistance is the reaction high crossing at 992.20. First support is the 20-day moving average crossing at 941.00. Second support is the 10-day moving average crossing at 924.25. The December S&P 500 Index was up 2.70 pts. at 970.00 as of 5:58 AM CST. Overnight action sets the stage for a higher opening by the December S&P 500 index when the day session begins later this morning.

December crude oil was lower overnight as it consolidates below the 62% retracement level of the 2007-2008-rally crossing at 68.84. Stochastics and the RSI are turning bullish hinting that a short term low might be in or is near. Closes above the 20-day moving average crossing at 72.96 are needed to confirm that a short-term low has been posted. If December renews this fall's decline, the 75% retracement level of the aforementioned rally crossing at 51.81 is the next downside target. First resistance is last Thursday's high crossing at 70.60. Second resistance is the 20-day moving average crossing at 72.96. First support is last Monday's low crossing at 61.30. Second support is the 75% retracement level crossing at 51.81.

Guest Blogger Larry Levin "Turnaround Tuesday & Government Lies"

Guest Blogger today is Larry Levin. Larry is very passionate about the the government actions during this bear market. I look forward to Larry's newsletter everyday and you can sign up for it here Larry Levin's Newsletter

The market rallied Tuesday - big time. On average, all three of the major indices posted +10% gains. What was the good news you wonder? Well, ummm, there was the - no. Umm, it was - no wait, I can't remember. Oh yeah, it was actually the good news of, umm, nothing actually. Today was a lack-of-selling-rally. The market could not break the recent lows for days on end, and as soon as some of the sellers covered - BOOM - short covering rally. Today's pop was accompanied by anemic volume so I wouldn't trust it longer than a few days. Will turnaround Tuesday be followed by turnaround Wednesday or Thursday?

The answer could come via the FOMC tomorrow. Wall Street (what's left of it) has demanded another interest rate cut so you can bet it's a done deal. Although nothing the Fed has done has "worked," the Street still wants a quick fix.

Will cutting rates right by 50-basis points do anything? I have my doubts since the effective federal funds rate has already fallen to 1% due to a new Fed policy to pay banks interest on the excess reserves they deposit at the Fed. The very point of paying that interest was to reduce the effective rate, so a cut tomorrow is just for show.

Have you seen ANY trickle down of lower rates yet? I sure haven't. Not long ago the Fed Funds rate was 5.75%, and tomorrow it will surely be 1%. The regular Joe sees little benefit from lower rates. Banks just are not passing along the lower rates to consumers in the form of lower interest rates on loans or credit cards. Banks are like roach motels. The nearly free money from the FOMC goes in, but doesn't come out! The savers and responsible people of this country are being fleeced to support all of the deadbeat banks and tapped out borrowers. After inflation (which is still out there - just not as bad as before), savers get a negative rate of return. It seems like there is no place left to flee in this world responsibility matters.

Perhaps tomorrow's cut is the next step in following the Bank of Japan (BOJ)? When Japan suffered its deflationary spiral after its housing bubble, the BOJ cut rates to ?-of-1%. A few months ago it raised rates to ?-of 1%, and is now considering cutting rates to ?-of-1% soon. Maybe, just maybe, if Helicopter-Ben cuts rates to ?-of-1% your credit card interest rate will be cut to 20% or so. In fact, an ex-Fed Governor is recommending ZERO Fed Funds rate for 2009!

Wake up folks, the Fed doesn't give a damn about you, if you get a lower rate on anything; it only cares if their banking buddies are solvent.

Moreover, Fed chairman Bernanke has shown he doesn't care if he follows the Constitution or not. He just declares exigent circumstances, which is his get-out-of-jail-free card. In the I Can Do Whatever I Want file in Bernanke's cabinet we see he is now backstopping foreign governments. Yeah, you read that right: YOUR TAXDOLLARS ARE DIRECTLY BAILING OUT FOREIGN BANKS! Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- State-run Korea Development Bank received Federal Reserve approval to sell as much as $830 million of commercial paper to the U.S. central bank, becoming the first Korean bank to tap the new funding facility. Kookmin Bank, South Korea's largest, was also deemed eligible to sell commercial paper to the Fed.

Now we're buying foreign commercial paper issued by a foreign bank controlled by a sovereign nation. Great. Amazing. WTF! Did you get to vote on this? Are you pissed off YET? If not, what is it going to take? Is this constitutional? Ah, who cares says Bernanke - exigent circumstances! But for whom I wonder? The Koreans? Since when is that our business?

Excuse me, but isn't this Congresses territory? I seem to recall that when the US hands out aid it must be voted on by those who have been elected. Furthermore, Congress decides how the money can be spent. Now Bernanke of the Fed is taking over - exigent circumstances he says.

I think Bernanke should be shackled and thrown in jail. Under what charge, he asks? Exigent circumstances comes the reply!

Mr. Bernanke was never granted this power, but as I have mentioned he doesn't care. It's a form of lying, lying by omission. The $700-billion TARP handout to Wall Street banks was supposed to be lent out to the average guy, at a low rate to boot. After all, the Fed keeps cutting rates - right? However, no money is being lent out. Wall Street banks are using YOUR TAXDOLLARS to pay an estimated $70-billion in bonuses this year. WHAT!??? Bonuses? For what - bankrupting the world economy? They are using YOUR TAXDOLLARS to pay dividends to shareholders. Why cut the dividend when the government is handing out money? They are also using YOUR TAXDOLLARS to acquire other banks. Whatever is left over is being hoarded.

It was another lie folks. You were bamboozled again. Hank Paulson NEVER said this was part of the deal! Hank Paulson, who is now literally being called King Paulson on Wall Street and in D.C., said the $700-billion would be used to buy bad assets? Puhhhlleeaaaseeeee!!! SUCKER!!! I begged you to call your Congressman to stop this. The only thing that is left is to vote against everyone who approved this steaming pile of dung on Nov. 4th.

Are there any more lies out there you wonder? Hmm, let's look under this rock. Ah yes, here's another lie from the government to expose. Congress recently approved a handout of $25-billion for the Big 3 automakers, which are to help speed the availability of fuel-saving technologies - period. But who cares anymore? Apparently nobody.

The White House is working to release $5-billion of that $25-billion immediately for the purpose of GM merging with a private company, Chrysler. According to the Wall Street journal, however, this is only half of what will be needed. The combined entity would need about $10 billion in new equity to cover the cost of laying off workers, closing plants and integrating the two companies, say people involved in the talks.

So I guess that means the merger money, that you were never told you had to pay, is only half way there. You were lied to AGAIN!

Automakers gained on the news of the taxpayer's fleecing. At today's closing price you can get a lunch at your favorite fast food restaurant for one share of GM. It might take two or three shares of Ford for one of those meals. The answer, however, all depends on your McFatty McFat level of consumption. Super size what - my lunch or the deficit? And yes, I'll take a side of deflation, why not.

In today's only economic news, the Conference Board reported its consumer confidence index fell to a record low in October. In fact, it was the largest one-month decline in the index - EVER! As bad as consumers think the economy is now, they are convinced it'll get worse. Consumers say their job prospects are weak, their incomes aren't likely to grow, and the prices they pay are likely to soar.

Unfortunately the story ends there. I was hoping to read WHERE and WHEN the masses would assemble to march on DC, with pitchforks and torches in hand of course, because I'll lead the march. I've had it up to here with all of the Fed's, Treasury's, White House's, and Congresses bu!!sh*t.

Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called experts.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

I know you are just waiting for it to be over. As if we are just going to turn around on a dime and it will be just like the good old days, 2006-2007. It's true that we will get some huge moves to the upside and you will want to already be in the market when they happen so you can take advantage of it. But don't think that it is smooth sailing from there.

The American consumer is completely in charge now. Every day that a DOW company reports weaker earnings will send the markets down. And not only do we have to get the run on the hedge and mutual funds out of our system, we will follow that up with investors selling through the end of December to take advantage of tax write offs. Especially if they fear a new President raising their capitol gains taxes. It will be January before we can really hope to see a solid move to the up side.

Am I still shorting the market? I am being very careful from here on out, but I did go short the S & P 500 with ticker SDS mid day today only to sell it off in the last 15 minutes of the trading day. Holding these positions overnight are just hard to endure. I'll gladly take that profit in any market.

While most retail investors look for a rally on a .50 Fed rate cut from the FOMC meeting that starts on Tuesday, I think the market has it cooked in and that was partially responsible for the pop we got today. I have to believe that it is still time to sell all of these Bear Market rally's.

You have to start adding to your long term positions sooner or later, just do it a little at a time. Happy Trading tomorrow!