Morning Report: Goldman predicting a rate hike in March 12/21/15

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Brent Nyitray

Stocks are up this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up small.

We have a holiday shortened week, with markets closing early on Thursday. We do get some important data with the final revision to Q3 GDP, Existing Home Sales, New Home Sales, the FHFA House Price Index, personal spending and income, and inflation. Basically a week’s worth of data crammed into 3 days.

Oil continues to fall, hitting $34.23 a barrel for WTI.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index fell to -.3 from – .17.

Goldman is predicting a March rate hike – a “fairly easy path.”  They anticipate growth will remain above trend and employment growth to be well above breakeven. Inflation will pick up as the the big swoon in oil from $100 to $50 will be a year old and won’t be pushing down the inflation numbers.

What deleveraging? Household debt rose to $14.1 trillion in Q3, according to the NY Fed. This is just off the high of $14.3 trillion in the third quarter of 2008. Auto debt and mortgages drove the increase.

Filed under: Morning Report |

« »

38 Responses

  1. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 9:17 am said:

    My comment is . . . FRRRIIIIISSSSSTTTTT!

    Like

    Reply
  2. yellojkt, on December 21, 2015 at 9:21 am said:

    Are there really inflation fears? It’s not showing up in commodity prices or wages. They are taking away the punch bowl before anybody even shows up.

    Like

    Reply
  4. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 9:27 am said:

    Tend to agree, I don’t see inflation as being a major risk. What’s going to drive up prices, outside of increases in the cost of energy?

    Like

    Reply
  5. jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 10:04 am said:

    Sargent is funny today:

    “Everyone agrees that Trump is engaged in full-blown demagoguery and bigotry against Muslims and immigrants. ”

    Well, except for Trump voters.

    Like

    Reply
    • yellojkt, on December 21, 2015 at 10:08 am said:

      Well, except for Trump voters.

      Trump voters just see that as a feature, not a bug.

      Like

      Reply
      • jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 10:14 am said:

        No, they make the distinction between illegal immigrants and legal ones, etc that progressives disdain as racism.

        Like

        Reply
      • Let the mutherfuker burn!, on December 21, 2015 at 10:14 am said:

        What percentage of Trump supporters see that as a “feature, not a bug.”?

        Like

        Reply
      • jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 10:37 am said:

        Still one of the best pieces for understanding Trump’s appeal:

        “He’s able to consistently evoke issues in a way that makes people feel anger, rather than fear. (Some of his opponents use fear; for example, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ted Cruz told the crowd that the IRS “would start going after Christian schools, Christian charities, and…Christian churches.”)

        And though Trump frequently raises issues that could elicit fear—terrorism, crime, economic collapse—he does so with indignation, which suggests that the audience should feel that way, too.

        He’s angry, but not fearful.”

        https://newrepublic.com/article/122807/why-donald-trump-so-compelling-two-advertising-experts-explain

        Like

        Reply
        • ScottC, on December 21, 2015 at 10:52 am said:

          jnc:

          Still one of the best pieces for understanding Trump’s appeal:
          I don't think many people on the left are all that interested in understanding Trump's appeal. I think most of them are content to frame it as confirmation of their own caricatured understanding of the right more generally.

          Like

        • Let the mutherfuker burn!, on December 21, 2015 at 11:02 am said:

          What happens to the left when people get wise to the concept of shaming?

          Like

      • jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 11:24 am said:

        Which is also why they can’t actually fathom his being able to win. I have a sneaking suspicion that the stealth Democratic debate strategy coupled with a reliance on the “coalition of the ascendant” will come back to bite them.

        Trump is one recession or one successful domestic terrorist attack away from being competitive, if not favored, in the general election.

        Like

        Reply
      • Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 1:04 pm said:

        Scottc1: “I don’t think many people on the left are all that interested in understanding Trump’s appeal.”

        And if we do get a president Trump, that will be why. They don’t understand why Trump saying whatever comes to his mind and having an angle on things that is odds with typical DC politicians is appealing.

        It’s all racism! And fascism. And none of those people have to be treated as real people, so let’s write them all off and expect demographics and identity politics to sweep us to victory.

        … which it might. But I’m thinking it could be closer than it needs to be. I legitimately think The Donald is the only Republican actually likely to win pitted against Hillary or Bernie (that is, based on what has happened thus far).

        ” I think most of them are content to frame it as confirmation of their own caricatured understanding of the right more generally.”

        And it helps them sleep easier at night, to know that there are so many people in the country they are morally superior to. 😉

        Like

        Reply
        • ScottC, on December 21, 2015 at 2:17 pm said:

          KW:

          I legitimately think The Donald is the only Republican actually likely to win pitted against Hillary or Bernie (that is, based on what has happened thus far).

          I think almost any R candidate could beat Sanders. And I wonder how invincible Hillary really is, even against the rest of the R’s. I think a lot of D/I voters would sit on the sidelines rather than vote for her. A lot of people really hate her, and they are not all on the right.

          Like

        • yellojkt, on December 21, 2015 at 2:34 pm said:

          Marco Rubio seems to have pissed off some people on his climb to the top as well.

          Politics ain’t beanbag, but the fact of the matter is that House of Cards–style chicanery is relatively rare in Washington. Rubio has backstabbed a lot( (emphasis in original) of people over the past five years, none of it in pursuit of any especially clear factional goal.

          Although I think it’s tough to beat Calgary Ted Cruz as the most despised elected fellow politician within his own party. (“elected” used as a disclaimer to exclude Donald Trump)

          Like

        • ScottC, on December 21, 2015 at 2:52 pm said:

          Can anyone explain to me what is so bad about Ted Cruz? I routinely hear about how he is not a viable choice (as in “Surely Trump won’t win, but what’s the alternative, Ted Cruz?!?!”) but whenever I ask what exactly Cruz has said or done that makes him such a bad choice, I get baffled looks and no answer. It is clear that all right thinking people are supposed to hate Ted Cruz, but I still don’t know why, and he strikes me as a pretty bright guy.

          Like

        • yellojkt, on December 21, 2015 at 3:08 pm said:

          Being bad and being hated are two different things. Here is a recent WaPo article about the enemies he has made:

          he list of GOP politicians and operatives willing to take open shots at Cruz has grown long: Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former House speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), fellow Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Sen. John Thune (S.D.), former senator Tom Coburn (Okla.) — and on and on.

          Cruz does not appear to be bothered. The senator and presidential candidate seems to relish the fact that so many fellow Republicans love to hate him.

          But stories of his unpopularity go back further.

          The wheels are coming off the clown car that is the modern Republican Party. House and Senate GOP leaders are sniping at each other, on Twitter and, even more nastily, via their congressional aides. And no one’s been more vilified than the junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. Not even Barack Obama, for a change.

          Like

        • ScottC, on December 21, 2015 at 3:42 pm said:

          yello:

          Being bad and being hated are two different things.

          True. The sense I am getting from your links is that he is personally unpopular among fellow politicians, which is different from having unpopular or crazy policy views.

          Personally, how well-liked he is among his colleagues isn’t that important to me.

          Like

        • yellojkt, on December 21, 2015 at 3:23 pm said:

          Matt Yglesias says it better than I ever could:

          Republican leaders’ beef with Cruz is personal

          Cruz is so loathed by Republican Party congressional leaders and most of the party’s big-time political operatives that many journalists are inclined to offer deep and nuanced explanations of that hatred’s origins. But at a high level, the story is pretty simple: Cruz is not a team player.

          However, the Associate Juiceboxer says that Cruz is actually a good candidate for the GOP:

          What the party needs is someone who can consolidate the non-Trump vote and bring him back down to earth.

          But this is where things get tricky.

          What is needed, in essence, is an evangelical Christian with orthodox conservative views on immigration and economic policy.

          Like

      • Brent Nyitray, on December 21, 2015 at 3:06 pm said:

        “but I still don’t know why, and he strikes me as a pretty bright guy.”

        he is a social conservative, which is icky

        Like

        Reply
  6. jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 10:33 am said:

    My complements NoVA:

    “Hospitality and Gambling Interests Delay Closing of Billion-Dollar Tax Loophole

    By ERIC LIPTON and LIZ MOYER
    DEC. 20, 2015

    WASHINGTON — In the span of a mere 11 days this month, $1 billion in future federal tax payments vanished.

    As congressional leaders were hastily braiding together a tax and spending bill of more than 2,000 pages, lobbyists swooped in to add 54 words that temporarily preserved a loophole sought by the hotel, restaurant and gambling industries, along with billionaire Wall Street investors, that allowed them to put real estate in trusts and avoid taxes.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/us/politics/hospitality-and-gambling-interests-delay-closing-of-dollar1-billion-tax-loophole.html

    Like

    Reply
  7. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 1:09 pm said:

    @jnc4p: “Trump is one recession or one successful domestic terrorist attack away from being competitive, if not favored, in the general election.”

    I think he can get there without that. Given enough anti-gun and anti-God rhetoric from the left and enough calling obvious terrorism “not terrorism” because the people who did it were Muslim, while having no problem calling domestic terrorism “terrorism” because it’s generally caucasians who are likely nominal Christians doing it, and give Donald enough opportunity to demonstrate the size of his big brass balls . . . doesn’t require a seminal event. Might require a little defying of the polls, but I think that’s a definite possibility. I think The Donald might bring out some “non-likely voters”.

    Like

    Reply
  8. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 1:11 pm said:

    @mcwing: “What happens to the left when people get wise to the concept of shaming?”

    They’d have to find a new strategy. But I think it’s a big leap to assume people will get wise to the shaming strategy. Human beings have been doing it for a long time. It’s the mechanism by which most organized religions operate!

    Like

    Reply
  9. jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 1:30 pm said:

    This is good:

    “The Wrong Side of ‘the Right Side of History’

    President Obama espouses a facile faith in history bending toward perfection and morality—against evidence and reason.

    David A. Graham 6:07 AM ET ”

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/obama-right-side-of-history/420462/

    Like

    Reply
  10. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 5:02 pm said:

    @Scottc1: “I think almost any R candidate could beat Sanders.”

    It’s early, but I remain dubious. I would have thought McCain would take Obama in 2008 though, so what do I know?

    Like

    Reply
  11. Kevin S. Willis, on December 21, 2015 at 5:06 pm said:

    Also, no matter who gets the nomination, I’m expecting it to be a reasonably tight election. Though anything can change between now and November.

    Like

    Reply
  12. jnc4p, on December 21, 2015 at 5:16 pm said:

    Looks like a little doubt is starting to hit some progressive pundits:

    “Democrats should fear the depths of Donald Trump’s support
    By Jonathan Capehart
    December 21 at 4:56 PM”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/12/21/democrats-should-fear-the-depths-of-donald-trumps-support/

    Like

    Reply

Be kind, show respect, and all will be right with the world.