All Things in Moderation

Markets are lower this morning as earning pile in. Bonds and MBS are down small.

Dodd-Frank has severely neutered the market-making function of the banking system. When the Fed starts tightening and bonds sell off, the natural buyers of bonds (primary dealer banks) will no longer be able to dampen the moves by standing on the other side of the trade. The Fed is unconcerned about this, but we shall see what happens when rates start going up and the bond market starts falling faster than they are comfortable with.

Incidentally, Hillary will probably be forced to support a financial transactions tax, which is a tax on market-making as well. Basically it would slap a  tax on every stock trade, currency trade, and bond trade. Narrowing bid / ask spreads and a 90% drop in commission rates has basically eliminated the market-making functions (NASDAQ market makers, the specialists on the NYSE floor, block trading at banks) in the stock market. Machines are all that is left, and even they are not in the market-stabilization business. The next crash, they are going to suspend trading until things stabilize and there will be nothing but GTC (good till cancelled) buy orders for people to sell to. Washington should be careful what it wishes for.

As China’s economy cools off, and the US dollar rallies, we have seen commodities get absolutely slammed. Oil has been cut in half over the past year. Gold is in free-fall. Natural Gas is down big. This will keep a lid on inflation, and allow the Fed to keep rates lower longer.

Everyone knows that Chinese money has been behind the building boom in many large cities. This is actually driven by policy. Chinese investors who invest $500,000 and can prove that their investment created at least 10 jobs (not hard to do on a construction project) get permanent green cards. These are typically wealthy Chinese investors who are trying to get green cards for their kids and are not all that concerned about return on investment, which means dirt cheap financing for developers. Now, the government is thinking of making some changes. Obama would like these investors to put money in low-income housing, not luxury condos. Also, abuses in the program have led other to question it altogether. The program has bipartisan support so it probably isn’t going anywhere, but when you use policy as an economic lever you invariably create dislocations and marginal projects that don’t make economic sense. Something to watch.

Stocks are lower this morning after retail sales came in weaker than expected. Bonds and MBS are up.

Looks like we have a deal with Iran. Sanctions are lifted, but snap back if Iran violates any of the terms of the agreement. The immediate effect will to bring another 3 MM barrels of oil per day onto the market. Congress will have a vote on the deal.

Retail sales disappointed in June, with the headline number falling .3% versus expectations of a positive .3%. Ex autos and gas, they fell .2%, versus the .4% expectation. May strong numbers were revised down slightly. There appears to be some seasonal effects going on here (early Memorial Day “borrowed” sales from June) so don’t read too much into this number.

The NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey fell in June to 94.1 from 98.3. Weak sales and the political environment accounted for the decrease. Looks like hiring stopped in June.

Import prices fell .1% in June and are down 10% on a year-over-year basis.

Now that Tsipras has accepted the EU’s terms, he has to sell the idea back at home. Not going to be an easy task, but it will probably pass.

Hillary Clinton gave a speech yesterday on the economy, and it is more or less a grab-bag of assorted liberal ideas: increase the minimum wage, more aggressive enforcement of discrimination laws, paid family leave, free childcare, the usual.. She even went after Uber (who cheekily did a senior citizen promotion that day). It is clear she is feeling the #Bern and is worried about her left flank.

JP Morgan reported this morning that mortgage banking net income fell 20% in the quarter. Not a lot of color on mortgage banking in particular, however they are paying close attention to China (I’ll bet). The stock is up about 1 percent on the open.

Wells also reported this morning. Mortgage banking revenues fell 1% in spite of the fact that originations rose to $62 billion from $47 billion. Well’s market share fell to 13% from 28% three years ago.

Earnings season kicks off in earnest this week, with the big banks reporting. Note the Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Applications index is off about 16% during the quarter, so mortgage origination numbers could be light.

We have some big economic data this week, with retail sales tomorrow, industrial production on Wed, and housing starts on Friday. Bonds should still be at the mercy of international events however.

Janet Yellen spoke on Friday and said she expects the Fed to hike rates this year, however she cited weakness in the labor market as a reason for caution. I think the Fed is determined to make at least a symbolic move to get off the zero bound, but will tighten much more gradually than it did in the past. The exit from the post stock market bubble days was pretty dramatic, about 2 percentage points a year, or 25 basis points every meeting.

You can see from the dot graph from the June meeting that the FOMC is forecasting a slower liftoff, however we are still looking at a 350 basis point (roughly) tightening vs the 425 basis point tightening in 2004, which blew up the residential real estate bubble. Will this tightening campaign blow up the sovereign debt bubble? Or something else?

Markets are higher as Greece proposed a new package of spending cuts, reform, and tax increases in exchange for a new bailout. Chinese stocks rose overnight for the biggest 2-day gain since 2008. Bonds and MBS are down.

It looks like we are close to a deal to give Greece another bailout. Greece has proposed to more or less adopt the creditors’ proposals on sales and corporate tax rates. Pensions also got trimmed and the savings are more or less in line with that the creditors have wanted all along. Greece has capitulated and it looks like they will stay in the EU.

Janet Yellen will be speaking at 12:30 EST. Traders will be listening for comments regarding China and whether the melt-down there will cause the Fed to hold off raising rates.

Everywhere it seems like there is a shortage of real estate for sale. The exception is the uber-high end, especially in NYC suburbs like Greenwich, CT. At the current pace of sales, it would take 4.9 years to absorb the current inventory. Compare this to the NAR’s estimate of about 5 months nationally. IMO, there is an additional factor here – Wall Street salaries have been eroded over time as hedge funds consolidate, sales and trading jobs vanish and proprietary trading goes away. If the Chinese government orders their rich to repatriate their assets to support domestic markets, we could see more inventory in the big cities. Even if their government does not order them to repatriate, there is almost no doubt that the slowdown will affect their appetite for new properties.

Actually a bit of a slow news day