May 2023 Macro and Market Musings: Monetary Policy and Inflation

May 17, 2023 – Since early 2022, the Federal Reserve has been raising its policy interest rate at breakneck speed by a full five percentage points. Inflation has indeed subsided a bit, but both price levels and percentage changes remain stubbornly high. When will inflation finally go back to normal? What’s the path forward for monetary policy? Will there be a recession? So many questions! Let’s take a look…

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Recession Or Not?

August 5, 2022 – Last week we got the Q2 GDP numbers and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) confirmed that GDP has now declined for two consecutive quarters. What do I make of that? Are we in a recession now? Since several people asked me to comment on this issue, here are my thoughts…

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The Bear Market is here. What Now?

June 15, 2022 – With the recent confirmation of a Bear Market finally taking hold, I’ve gotten some requests to comment on the situation: Are we going to have a recession? What’s my inflation outlook? What to expect from the Federal Reserve? What does this all mean for us in the FIRE community?

Let’s take a look…

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Q4 2020 GDP Update: Are we on track for a sustained economic recovery?

February 1, 2021 – Last week on Thursday we got a new snapshot on how the economy is doing. The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers that day and the headline number came out as +4%. So the economy grew at an annualized rate of 4% that quarter or about 1% quarter-over-quarter. Not bad! Considering the uncertainty about growth going forward after the blockbuster 33.4% third quarter growth number it’s reassuring that we kept some of the upward momentum in the fourth quarter.

But just to be sure, there is still a lot of economic pain and uncertainty out there. You ask two different people and you will hear two different opinions on how the economy is going. Unless, of course, they are economists and you will hear three different opinions, as the joke goes. 

Since I wrote my post about the Q3 GDP release three months ago and it was quite popular, I thought it would be a good idea to write another update. Is the recession finally over? How much of the pandemic-induced loss has the economy recovered? Do we have to worry about a renewed drop in the economy? Let’s take a look..

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What to make of that Q3 U.S. GDP number?

October 29, 2020 – Today’s GDP release for the third quarter came in at 33.1%. Not a typo. After the disastrous second-quarter number of -31.4%, the worst quarterly number on record we now got the best quarterly reading on record. What’s going on here? What do I make of that number? Are we out of the woods now? I’m putting on my economist’s hat for today and share my thoughts in a short post. Let’s take a look…

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The Shortest Recession Ever? My Thoughts on the State of the Economy

August 25, 2020 – A lot of people – online and offline – have been asking about my opinion on the economy. When will the recession be over? Is the recession over already? How does the recession stack up with other events in the past? What are the risks going forward?

So many questions! Let’s take a look…

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Are we in another Bull Market now?

Update 8/18/2020: Well, that didn’t take very long! On August 18, the S&P 500 and Price Index finally set a new record high. The Total Return Index (dividends reinvested) had already reached its new all-time high on August 10. So, we know for sure that this is a new Bull Market and it started after the March 23 Bear Market Low!

2020 Case Study - update 8-18
S&P 500 returns, total return and price index since the 2/19/2020 peak.

May 11, 2020: The stock market is still well below its February all-time-high, but it’s holding up remarkably well considering how poorly the economy is doing right now:

  • Double-digit unemployment,
  • 20+ million jobs lost according to the BLS payroll employment data,
  • 30+ million jobs lost according to the sum of weekly unemployment claims since March,
  • -4.8% GDP growth in the first quarter (annualized rate) and possibly a 10% drop quarter-on-quarter in Q3, which would be reported as a 34% drop annualized!
  • And a whole host of other economic indicators that look so bad, you’d have to go back to the Great Depression to find similar readings

Actually, “holding up” is a bit of an understatement when you look at the stock market as of the Friday, May 8 close:

  • The S&P 500 TR index rallied 31% since the March 23 low!
  • We’ve recovered more than half of the drop peak to trough!
  • Since April 8, we’re no longer 20% below the recent all-time-high, which is often quoted as the cutoff for the Bear Market!

2020 Case Study
The 2020 Bear Market up to May 8. Did a new Bull Market start on 3/24?

Does that mean the Bear market is over now? I certainly hope so! Whether the Bear Market is over and a new Bull Market might have started already obviously depends on the definition of Bull vs. Bear. What is that definition of Bull vs. Bear anyway? Different people have different definitions, some more sensible than others. And it gets more complicated: even if we do agree on a sensible definition, there could still be uncertainty over what’s the state of the market right now because some criteria cannot designate the state of the world in real-time but only after the fact. There’s a confirmation lag! So, we could be in a sort of a bull/bear-limbo state right now! How is that possible???

So many questions! Let’s take a look at how I think about Bull vs. Bear…

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Some Random Thoughts on the State of the World

March 27, 2020 – Wow, I’m in a writing mood these days. A second post this week! Here are a few random thoughts about the current situation. All the things on my mind right now that might be too short to put into a separate blog. Since you’re likely all sitting at home feeling bored, I thought you might enjoy this… Continue reading “Some Random Thoughts on the State of the World”

My thoughts on the “Upcoming Recession”

“The recession is near!” Headlines like that have become more common recently. And I’m not talking about those ridiculous “sponsored posts” on Yahoo-Finance (“Reclusive millionaire’s warning: get out of cash now”) but the actual news; the Yield Curve inverted recently and then you add the “Trade War” and weakness abroad and everybody gets nervous. Even the U.S. Federal Reserve is nervous enough to start lowering rates again; one cut already in July and another 0.25% cut likely coming tomorrow! So, will the longest-running economic expansion end of “old age” soon and cause a sizable market correction? Or a bear market? Or a market crash? Should we even care? Since lots of readers have asked me to weigh in on those issues I thought this might be a good time to write a post on this.

First of all, hell yes, we should care. If the economy really goes South and the stock market with it, that would be detrimental for retirees and even folks well before retirement. Fortunately, despite all those bad headlines, I’m still sleeping well at night. Sure, the outlook has worsened since earlier this year and I am a bit more worried about the market now compared to before. But I’m still not too concerned in absolute terms. And my view is mostly based on economic fundamentals. Notice how that view is different from some places in the FIRE community where “no worries” has become something of a mantra. The standard applause line there is that “the market always recovers, so we don’t have to worry about a bear market!” But that’s really a strawman argument. Nobody ever argued that we’ll have a recession and a permanent bear market that we’ll never recover from! The stock market is tied to macroeconomic fundamentals and as long as the economy grows we can be confident that the market keeps delivering. But eventually getting back to the old peak is a pretty lame criterion. Why? Let’s look at the chart below from my post earlier this year, but updated to 9/13/2019. It plots the real (inflation-adjusted) total-return performance (dividends reinvested) of the S&P 500 since 2000.

SPX-Real-TR-Chart
Real, CPI-adjusted S&P500 total return (dividends reinvested) 12/31/1999 to September 2019 (month-to-date). I also marked the 2000-2002 and 2007-2009 peaks and troughs and how the index would have performed with an assumed 6% p.a. trend return.

Of course, the market recovers eventually. But it may take a while! The index didn’t reach the 2000 peak until 2013. And a zero-percent real return over 13 years is a pretty lousy goal. Or here is another way to look at the chart: Let’s start at the peak in 2000 and assume the 2001 and 2007-2009 recessions had never happened and the index had instead advanced at 6% per year (even a little bit less than the long-term average). We’d be 50+% richer today. Don’t tell me recessions and bear markets don’t matter! Also, we did catch up to the 2007 peak plus 6% growth, but even that took about 10 years. So, yes absolutely, recessions and bear markets matter because of what they can do to our retirement plans, compliments of Sequence of Return Risk.

I’m just pointing this out to stress that I’m not categorically unconcerned about a recession. I just don’t see enough evidence yet to run for the hills. Let’s take a look at the details… Continue reading “My thoughts on the “Upcoming Recession””

Yield Curve Inversion: Eight Reasons Why I’m Not Worried Yet

Update 8/22/2019: The 10Y-2Y spread inverted very briefly during the day on 8/14, but finished the day at +0.01%. Am I worried now? Certainly more worried than in April when I wrote this piece. The ISM-PMI index is around 51 – that’s also weaker but not weak enough to worry; everything above 50 is still called expansionary, only below 45 it’s a serious warning sign. Unemployment claims are still very low, which is a good sign. So, this is still “only” a mixed bag. Consistent with a false alarm a la 1998. But the probability of worse things to come has certainly gone up!

Well, there you have it: The Yield Curve inverted last month. Finally! Starting on March 22 and throughout much of last week, short-term interest rates (e.g., the 3 months bills) yielded slightly more than the bond market bellwether, the 10-year Treasury bond.

YieldCurveInversion Chart06
The 10-year yield dropped below the 3-month yield for a few days in March!

People in finance and economics view this with some concern because history has told us that an inverted yield curve is a pretty reliable recession indicator. And I made this point in my post in February 2018: The yield curve shape, especially the slope between longer-term yields (10 years) and the short end (e.g., 2-year yields) is one of my three favorite macro indicators:

Retire at Market Peak Chart01
From last year’s post: Yield Curve slope (10Y vs. 2Y Treasury bonds) over time. A powerful recession early warning signal (1970-2018)!

Also notice that I usually look at the 10-year vs. 2-year yield rather than 3-month spread and that made a bit of a difference recently, more on a little bit that later. But in any case, since I went on the record about the importance of the yield curve and now got several reader requests to comment on this issue, here’s an update: in a nutshell, I’m not yet worried and here are eight reasons why…

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