Category: interest rates

inflation, interest rates, retirement, risk management

2023 Inflation and Parallels to the Seventies

James Cox

My most vivid memory of the Seventies is sitting in the car with my siblings and parents in a mall parking lot the week before Christmas and my mother crying because they couldn’t afford presents and had to file bankruptcy. For a 12-year-old it made the challenges of real life… real.

The seventies were a traumatic time for many Americans… the end of the Vietnam war, the political chaos of Watergate and Nixon, the oil embargo, gas rationing throughout the decade, the suffocation of unions, the loss of jobs and industries as Japan and South Korea became exporters. Economic instability was an ever-present cloud.

Moving in waves through the decade, the economy suffered from bouts of inflation and deflation. It made policy decision-making challenging at best… boost the economy to keep it from slowing down, or is the economy running too hot?

When you drill down one sees many similarities between conditions that led to the “stagflation of the 1970s” and the situation we find ourselves in today.

Continue reading “2023 Inflation and Parallels to the Seventies” →
inflation, interest rates, risk management

Inflation and Jobs, May 2023

James Cox

On Weds. May 10th Core inflation held steady at 5.5% y/y. (2) Core inflation excludes the volatile food and energy components.

“It’s a head fake,” said Vincent Reinhart at Dreyfus & Mellon. (1)

From the Fed’s vantage point, “You better be sure when you stop, you’re not going to look back and regret it just a couple months later,” Reinhart said. The Fed really needs to be confident that inflation “is headed back to 2%. This is just another drop in the ocean.”

Continue reading “Inflation and Jobs, May 2023” →
income, interest rates, retirement, risk management

January 2023 Jobs Day

James Cox

After a year of the Fed raising rates, bubbles deflating and inflation surging to levels last seen in the 1980s, economists and investors are girding themselves for 2023. The first signpost of where the economy is headed was the January Jobs report on 1/6/2023.

Will the employment market continue its strong run of reports? Is the economy slowing? Will the Fed be forced to continue hiking or, as markets hope, will they start cutting rates?

Expectations are for the Fed to continue hiking rates to a level above 5%; currently rates are 4.25%.

Continue reading “January 2023 Jobs Day“ →
income, interest rates, retirement, risk management

Echoes of Jackson Hole… Sept jobs day, CPI, and the Fed

James Cox

On August 26th Fed Chair Jerome Powell addressed economists and decision-makers at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference. His remarks had been anticipated for months. The inflation raging through the economy and repeated Fed rate hikes have deflated some of the bubbles we saw at the start of 2022.

The question is, will the Fed slow its rate hikes and allow the economy to have a “soft landing” or will the Fed keep raising rates potentially crashing the economy…

Powell left no doubt about the path forward.

Continue reading “Echoes of Jackson Hole… Sept jobs day, CPI, and the Fed” →
interest rates, retirement, risk management

August Jobs Day

James Cox

In the 1970s the Fed led by Chair Arthur Burns shifted policy from hiking rates to fight inflation to cutting rates to fight recession. The result of this policy change was inflation growth slowed for a few months but then reaccelerated to higher levels causing more pain, more rate hikes and more recessions.

“This is the prospect of a flip-flopping Fed…” injected Jon Ferro of Bloomberg. (1)

“People are looking for the fed to cut as soon as they stop raising rates in order to counter a slowing economy” adds Lisa Abramowicz

Continue reading “August Jobs Day” →
interest rates, retirement, risk management

July Jobs Day–“Immense amount of uncertainty going forward.”

James Cox

Markets are struggling to grasp the realities of the new economic dynamics. Inflation is expected to be announced next week at 8.8% while unemployment is only 3.6%, near post-pandemic lows. In addition, second quarter GDP is projected to be negative 2.1% according to the Atlanta Fed. The first quarter was negative 1%. Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth signify a recession.

Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg pronounced “we have never been in a recession without rising unemployment”

While top line inflation is 8.8%, core inflation (without food and fuel) is only 6%, still far above the Fed’s 2% target.

However, says Tom Keene of Bloomberg, “We are not living core inflation… we are living almost double-digit headline inflation and it hurts.” (1)

The estimate is for 268k new jobs to have been created in June. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at 3.6%. Jobs creation in May was 390k.

Continue reading “July Jobs Day–“Immense amount of uncertainty going forward.”” →
interest rates, retirement, risk management

“The Menace of Inflation”: Inflation in Perspective

James Cox

In May 1974 Fed Chairman Arthur Burns gave a commencement speech to Illinois College. The speech was titled “The Menace of Inflation”.

At this point in the 1970s the nation had been struggling with high inflation for four long years… For perspective, we have been only dealing with high and rising inflation for one year so far. His voice offers a view of what to expect in the years to come.

“The gravity of our current inflationary problem can hardly be overestimated. Except for a brief period at the end of WW2, prices in the United States have of late been rising faster than in any other peacetime period of our history. If past experience is any guide, the future of our country is in jeopardy. No country that I know of has been able to maintain widespread economic prosperity once inflation got out of hand. And the unhappy consequences are by no means solely of an economic character. If long continued, inflation at anything like the present rate would threaten the very foundations of our society.” (1)

Continue reading ““The Menace of Inflation”: Inflation in Perspective” →
income, interest rates, retirement, risk management

Recession Risks Rise: a survey

James Cox

Over the past few months several institutional investors have offered insights on how the markets were evolving given a laundry list of changing conditions, including rising inflation, a change in Fed policy to raise rates, energy prices, and slowing world growth…

In January 2022 Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital was interviewed on Bloomberg by Erik Schatzker. Marks gave his view of how market condition were changing at the start of 2022 and how investors could adjust. Schatzker asked Marks, “are you worried about inflation?” (1)

“I am worried. This is excessive. Everyone wants a little inflation. For years central banks have been trying to generate inflation and haven’t been able to do so. Excessive inflation is not desirable.

Higher inflation means higher interest rates and higher rates mean lower asset prices, and that’s what’s going on right now.”

Continue reading “Recession Risks Rise: a survey” →
interest rates, retirement, risk management

Housing Crisis 2.0

James Cox

In 2008-2009 the nation was struck by a crisis in the mortgage credit markets that had repercussions for the next 15 years. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) caused many people to lose their house or their job, or both. Many have yet to fully recover.

Fast forward to 2020-2022 and the housing situation in the United States is very different… Housing prices are rapidly rising and mortgage rates are headed higher as the Fed begins to raise rates and tighten financial conditions in an effort to fight inflation. Since WW2 housing has been a bastion of wealth building for the middle and working class. As an asset people were able to benefit from its appreciation and stability over time. Contrast this to the fact that many in the middle or working class have very little saved in their 401ks compared to the wealthier 10% of society; The wealthiest 10% own 89% of stocks, nearly $36 trillion. (1)

As housing prices and mortgage rates rise, younger buyers who are starting out in life are increasingly being priced out of the market. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey takes a monthly snapshot of buying conditions for housing. The February 2022 figure came in at 36, a 42 year low. By way of comparison, the survey printed 70 in January 2020 and 56 in 2008 during the GFC.

So, the question is why are housing prices, as well as rents, continuing to rise with consumers largely sidelined?

Continue reading “Housing Crisis 2.0” →
income, interest rates, retirement, risk management

“The Fed is going to break things…”

James Cox

In the last week of March 2022, the Federal Reserve revealed a regime change in their policy. The Fed moved from balancing jobs and inflation and being patient to a new policy of aggressively raising rates in order to fight inflation, regardless of its impact on the economy.

On March 16, 2022 the Fed raised rates for the first time in several years 25bps. The move was well broadcast and expected by markets for many months. Many critics of the Fed have complained the Fed has waited too long to raise rates. In 2020 the Fed lowered rates and engaged in massive quantitative easing (“QE”) in order to pull the economy out of the recession that resulted from the COVID shutdown.

On Monday March 20, 2022, Chair Powell appeared at the NABE (National Association for Business Economics) conference; his comments revealed a clear change in priorities at the Fed, and some insight to policy going forward. (1) In his statement he shares that “Supply chains are healing, but we are now seeing new COVID related supply disruption from China. The healing will come in time as the world settles into a new normal, but the timing and scope of that relief are highly uncertain. In the meantime, the Fed will be focused on trying to reduce price pressures.

As the magnitude and persistence of inflation became more clear at the end of 2021, the FOMC pivoted to less accommodative monetary policy. I believe these policy actions, and those to come, will help bring inflation down to 2% over the next 3 years.“

Continue reading ““The Fed is going to break things…”” →