Weekly Webcasts
Join us every Monday for expert market commentary and analysis. Our weekly webcasts cover key market developments, economic indicators, and investment strategies.
Stagflation? Not!
One quarter does not stagflation make. True, the March quarter’s real GDP growth rate was down from the December quarter’s, while inflation was up—a combination that calls to mind “stagflation.” But the current economic scenario is nothing like the stagflationary environment of the late 1970s, when the combination of anemic GDP growth and out-of-control inflation crippled economic activity. … Today, we look at data confirming that economic activity is continuing apace—with consumers consuming, housing recovering, and businesses investing—and that PCED inflation remains on a moderating track, within our target range for the year.
House Of Mirrors
Today, we rant about rent and the housing market. Like a fun house mirror without the fun, several housing-related forces are distorting economic activity. There’s the distortive way rent inflation is measured in the headline CPI; if the BLS’s new All Tenant Rent index were used instead, the Fed would be fighting too-low inflation! … There are the forces messing with supply and demand, depressing the supply of homes for sale (Baby Boomers aren’t moving) and elevating demand for rental units. … Housing affordability has suffered as a result, with home prices up 46% just since the lockdown ended. The good news is that new rental supply is ameliorating rent inflation.
Inflation: The Ugly, The Good & The Bad
As the war in the Middle East escalates, it could send the oil price flying toward $100 per barrel and wipe out our expectations of continued moderation in US inflation (notwithstanding March’s anomalous CPI). … Barring that ugly scenario, our inflation outlook is good, with continued moderation to the Fed’s 2.0% target—which, notably, we wouldn’t view as justifying Fed easing this year. … But there are flies in the ointment: A few pesky elements of the inflation picture aren’t easily subdued, e.g., rent, health insurance, and auto-related costs.
Hooray! The Recession Is Over
There was no recession last year, but the widespread expectation of one depressed certain economic activities, like hiring. With that depressant now lifted, several labor market indicators shot to record highs in March. … Consumer spending has been strong, especially by Baby Boomers and especially on services, keeping demand for service workers robust. Strong employment and wage growth in turn have boosted consumer spending. … Real average hourly earnings has resumed its long-term uptrend after stagnating during the pandemic years.
The Amazing Flying Machine
The US economy is flying high and should continue to do so. It has defied the past two years’ widespread expectations that it would land hard or fall into recession. In fact, last year’s real GDP growth of 3.1% matched the 48-year average. Fiscal stimulus has helped, but the major engine has been robust consumer spending as Baby Boomers spend their wealth. With consumption per household near its record high, Americans have never been better off. … Corporate America is thriving too, with record cash flow, capital spending, and profits. … Plus, inflation by some measures is at the Fed’s 2% target.
Another Post On Our Post-Modern Monetary Theory
Is the “Fed Put” back? Might the Fed’s assurances that interest rates will be brought down this year (as long as inflation behaves as expected) fuel irrational exuberance among investors? And what if interest rates really don’t need to come down, because the notion that they do rests on a faulty premise—the “long and variable lag” thesis? Our Post-Modern Monetary Theory suggests that monetary tightening doesn’t cause recessions because of a lagged demand-choking response of the economy. Tightening usually causes recessions when it triggers financial crises that turn into credit crunches that bring on recessions. That sequence of events is unlikely now that the Fed knows how to play Whac-A-Mole in the financial markets.
Post-Modern Monetary Theory
Unlike in January, investors’ rate-cut expectations now appear to be in sync with FOMC members’ projections. Both seem to be anticipating two or three 25-basis-point cuts over the coming months. … Whether the apolitical Fed might time its rate cuts with any consideration for election-year politics is unclear, but we list some political considerations that it might be weighing if so.
‘Pent-Up Exuberance’
Is Bostic on to something? We think the Atlanta Fed president is right to warn about “pent-up exuberance,” the business community’s readiness to pounce on opportunities en masse the minute interest rates drop. Demand then could surge, triggering resurgent inflation. The Fed should be wary of tripping that wire by lowering interest rates too soon. … Yet Fed Chair Powell sounded ready to ease soon last Thursday. We don’t think the recession threat (of keeping rates higher for longer) is as worrisome as the pent-up exuberance threat (of easing too soon). … Our Roaring 2020s scenario is right on track. Fingers crossed the Fed doesn’t mess with success.
The Elephant (& The Donkey) In The Room
Bouts of geopolitical or domestic political strife usually don’t derail the US stock market. Investors tend to divorce politics from their decision making, counting on wars to end and gridlock to keep regulation-happy lawmakers in check. Only when geopolitical problems disrupt supply chains, trade, and global energy markets or when domestic partisanship prevents the government from functioning do these considerations matter to companies and their investors. We’re closely monitoring these risks and think it’s time for a heads-up: They could cloud our optimistic Roaring 2020s outlook in 2025. … For now, no such concerns are impeding the bull market; it’s currently thriving by multiple measures.
The Roaring 1990s: Déjà Vu All Over Again?
Many of this decade’s economic and financial market trends bear a striking resemblance to those of the 1990s. That was a decade in which a stock market meltup preceded a meltdown (in the early 2000s), so monitoring meltup indicators today is well worthwhile. Now, as then, stock market strength is translating to significant wealth effects that should keep the economy resilient and monetary policy restrictive for longer. Today, we highlight the two periods’ similar economic conditions (comparing the trajectories of real GDP growth, productivity growth, inflation, unemployment, and the federal funds rate) and financial market paths (bond yields, the stock market).
Earnings Bullseye, More Bullish Targets & More On Meltups
Today, we analyze the analysts, noting that they tend be influenced by stock market meltups—thus fueling the meltups—and during meltups tend to raise their long-term earnings growth rates unrealistically high. Nevertheless, we explain why we follow their forward earnings, revenues, and profit margin projections closely. We also give our projections for the S&P 500 companies’ operating earnings, revenues, profit margins, as well as the index’s the forward P/E and our S&P 500 price targets now through 2026, when we expect the S&P 500 price index to reach 6500.
Why Were Economists So Wrong?
High inflation rarely has been tamed without precipitating a recession. Few economic prognosticators thought it could be done. Yet the Fed has steered inflation down toward its 2.0% target while allowing the US economy to fly, avoiding a hard landing. Today, we look at the projections of economists who expected a hard landing of the economy and why their trusty models and indicators failed them.
Productivity Is Roaring Back
The pandemic distorted the economy in many ways, including derailing the productivity boom that we’d been expecting would characterize this decade—our Roaring 2020s scenario. That boom now may be back on track; productivity growth was well above the historical average during the past three quarters. If so, the ramifications for economic growth would be profound, as GDP growth is a function of labor force growth plus productivity growth. … We track the impact of productivity growth by monitoring inflation-adjusted wages, unemployment, unit labor costs, and price inflation rates.
Fairy Tales Can Come True
It doesn’t take a recession to bring down inflation to the Fed’s target! “Immaculate disinflation,” widely dismissed as a fairy tale, has come true. In fact, the current economic picture is enchanting, with GDP growth remaining robust, inflation moderating, unemployment remaining low, and consumer spending holding up even as pandemic-era saving depletes. The fairy dust that’s enabled this ideal economy: productivity growth, three quarters strong and counting. … Fed Chair Powell now faces the high-stakes decision of when to lower the federal funds rate. Too soon risks stimulating asset bubbles. Too late risks overly restrictive real interest rates now that inflation is down.
Let’s Party Like It’s 1999!
Now that investors’ recession fears have abated, they’re focusing on company fundamentals again, so good corporate news is having a stronger bullish impact. Additionally, investors are excited about the potential of AI and the prospect of Fed easing. The possible result: an exuberant meltup phase, which might already be under way and might become irrational. … Unless Fed Chair Powell stresses that he’s in no rush to ease, a speculative bubble could inflate, funded by money moving from interest-paying vehicles into stocks and bonds.
Powell’s Inflation Nightmare
The runaway inflation of the 1970s was whipped only after Paul Volcker took over as Fed chief, doing the deed but not without precipitating a recession. Powell’s efforts to engineer “immaculate disinflation,” lowering inflation without a recession, have gone well so far, as we’ve been expecting. But the specter of 1970s inflation’s twin peaks must keep him up at nights now that Middle East hostilities raise the risk of resurgent energy inflation. … Globally, inflation has been dropping, with China’s economic woes effectively working to export deflation to the rest of the world. But war in the Middle East could jeopardize that scenario if it disrupts oil supplies.
The True Story About Long & Variable Lags
The point between Fed tightening and easing is a good time to reconsider the widely accepted long-and-variable-lags theory of monetary policy. Is the economy still vulnerable to recession from the lagged effects of the 2022-2023 tightening round? We don’t think so. The markets have already started to ease, which should offset some lagged tightening effects. Furthermore, lagged tightening effects don’t invariably cause recessions. Our work shows that recessions result when tightening rounds cause credit crunches, not when they merely tamp down demand, and that credit-crunch precipitated recessions descend quickly, not with lags.
A Dozen Reasons To Be Bearish In 2024 (Not!)
How likely is the stock market to have a down year in 2024? Since down years tend to be associated with recessions, and since a recession is unlikely now that inflation has been approaching the Fed’s target, and since the Fed looks more likely to ease than not, it’s hard to see the stock market ending 2024 lower than it began. … Our last Morning Briefing of 2023 provided a dozen reasons to be bullish in 2024. This first one of the new year provides a dozen reasons not to be bearish.
A Dozen Reasons To Remain Bullish In 2024
The bears who still expect a recession base their arguments on historical precedents: At times in the past when economic indicators were flashing the signs they are today, recessions occurred. But we see good reasons not to apply past rules of thumb to the current set of circumstances. Moreover, our Roaring 2020s thesis that widespread adoption of new technologies will set off a productivity boom is unfolding. As a result, we’re bullish on the outlook for the US economy and stock market. Today, we present the bears’ talking points and our rebuttals, including 12 good reasons for optimism as we enter 2024.
Hard Luck For Hard Landers
The economy has proven resilient, defying all the reasons it shouldn’t be, to which diehard hard landers still cling. We expect that it will remain resilient and that inflation will continue to fall to the Fed’s target (a.k.a. “immaculate disinflation”). In this scenario, the Fed won’t be rushing to ease and won’t ease by much. The Fed’s policy stance is perhaps better cast as “normalizing” than tightening that requires undoing. Labor market supply and demand are coming into better balance, as the Fed would like, though November employment data attest to the labor market’s continued strength
Ho! Ho! Ho!
The stock market’s Santa Claus rally has been turbocharged by a rallying bond market, subsiding inflation, lower oil and gasoline prices—in turn fueling consumers’ purchasing power—diminished fear of the Fed, and China’s economic weakness, which lowers the prices Americans pay for goods imported from there. … Jamie Dimon is right to warn that geopolitical dangers are great, but we don’t ascribe to his view that inflation remains troublesome, the Fed might tighten more, and the consumer’s strength likely isn’t sustainable. We think the economic evidence suggest otherwise on each score. … More good news: The sticky services inflation rates that have concerned the Fed are coming unstuck.