Rate Cut Post Mortem

As you know I have my own feelings about Helicopter Bens's rate cut. In case you haven't been following along, I think it was an extraordinarily bad decision and each member of the FOMC should be strung up by their balls. I've been dieing to comment from a bush economists point of view (and have been ranting and raving offline), but really wanted a more professional opinion for this blog.

As usual, Mick Shedlock delivers the goods with some excellent analysis in Bernanke's Bullet Misses The Mark. Here is a synopsis taken directly from the article:

List of What's Changed

• Perception has changed.
  
• Any perception of the Fed as being concerned about inflation went out the window.
• Any perception of the Fed as being concerned about the dollar went out the window.
• Bulls are happiest they have been in months.
• The stock market is higher.
• Gold is higher.
• Oil is higher.
• The Prime Rate dropped 50 basis points.

List of What Hasn't Changed

• Mortgage Rates. (Actually mortgage rates rose since last week as the chart below shows).
• Auto Loan Rates. Nearly identical to last week.
• Home Equity Loan Rates. Nearly identical to last week.
  
• The outlook for jobs. (If anything the outlook is weaker judging from the Fed's panic).
• Credit Card Interest Rates.
• The foreclosures outlook did not change. It is still bleak.

The Fundamentals Have Not Changed

• Massive numbers of foreclosures are still going to happen.
• Banks are going to be stuck in huge numbers of REOs.
• Home inventories are still rising.
• The economic ship is still sinking
  
• The jobs market remains grim

Please read the whole article as it makes a whole bunch of sense.

As expected & noted, there has been movement in the markets; The USD is taking it up the ass, and Metals, Oil and other exchange rate sensitive markets are flying. The really curious movement to me was in the long bonds, both in the US and Europe. Since the rate decision, the contracts I follow closely and trade, The Euro Bund and The 10 Year T-Note have been down strongly and in fact accelerating today in big one day moves.

If you don't happen to know what this means, it means that longer term bond yields, which mortgages and other long-term are priced off, ARE RISING, as indicated in the 10 year YIELD chart on the left.

I am on record as holding the view that rates should in fact be rising and I think that once liquidity is normalized somewhat, Bernanke will be forced to raise again. But on the long end of the yield curve at least, the market is doing what the Fed doesn't have the balls to do. Those who have painted themselves into a corner in the housing market won't be getting any relief and nor should they. (Though I do feel sympathy for how the market and mass psychology have compelled them to make unwise decisions. The psychology used by vested interests is very strong.)

In conclusion, the shipwreck is still on course, a .5% cut proves it. The only area where I remain bemused is why equity traders are bullish.

Goodbye USD!

0.5% is a very fucking lousy decision.

I'll let the real economists mull over than one, while ignoring the capitol hill sycophants.

Jobs

So Wall Street economists were expecting ~+115,000 on the NFP number.

Really?

The building industry is hemorrhaging jobs from the great gaping hole in its aorta and I suspect there would be a few real estate broker sending CVs around at the moment too; and the NFP was a shock?

"It's a major shock to the market," said Peter Cardillo, chief market strategist at Avalon Partners. "If the job market continues to weaken, fears of a recession will continue to accelerate, calling into question corporate earnings."

You have to wonder about economists. I mean I have an interest in economics and though no formal degree, I would consider myself what would be termed here in Australia as a "bush economist". This is someone who basically has been fucked by not knowing about business cycles before and has learned to "sniff out" when things are starting to get out of whack.

We bush economists have been worried about sub-prime, stretched asset values and rampant malinvestment for a couple of years now while the smirking Wall Street assholes have been bullshitting on about Goldilocks economies.

We have also been wondering how long birth and death models and other such nonsense could disguise the real state of employment. When you get an actual drop of 4,000, it's time for folks to pull out their CVs and polish them up for a potential mass mail out.

But look and the bright side, it's another factor for Uncle Ben to justify a rate cut.

The logic goes: slowing economy => rate cut => bullish => market rally

Yep, Goldilocks rules... along with other fairytales

September Divinations

Always a useless exercise, predicting the future. However armed with a few statistics, I guess we can make a better "guess".

Anyone who has read CNBC over the weekend will have had the "heads up" that September is statistically the worst month of the year, set out in table form from their site:

Most have October locked in as the scariest month because of the few crashes that have occuredin October, but in actual fact, in most years October is up. Apart from those crashes, it's usually a good month. It's September that has quietly put in the hard yards as the crappiest month of the year.

For those who like a more graphical format, here is a bar chart I found at The Ducster's site:

Add to these statistical probabilities, the problems in the credit markets... yeah, yeah I know it's gone quiet on that front. It's very quiet, almost too quiet. I don't believe the problems have gone away or have been resolved, just a dearth of news on the subject; we don't really know what's going on deep in the bowels of financial institutions. According to my few little contacts in the institutions, they themselves don't know the extent of the problem, so everybody is keeping mum.

If the news breaks the surface the surface again, it could be truly fugly.

On the other hand, there is the possibility of the morally hazardous rate cut. In this interest rate obsessed stock market where rates are seemingly the only important fundamental, that could send the the permabulls into a muck lather buying frenzy.

I guess it all boils down to what corpses float to the surface in the next two or three weeks, but I'd be less surprised by new lows than new highs... not that I'd be surprised by new highs. There are still plenty willing to ignore the fact that we are likely to be moving into a credit crunched period of the cycle.

Austrian bust anyone?

Cynical Responses to Bush's Initiative

Ah yes, the President himself rides in on his white stallion to save the poor sub-prime defaulters. And my, what cynical responses from pragmatic bloggers:

*Ritholtz says Politics as Usual

* Mish parses the real thought process behind the initiative

*The Fundamental Analysist is wondering why Bush is asking Paulson to look into the sub-prime mess when Paulson doesn't even think there is a problem.

* The irony is not lost on Financial Armageddon either.

Normally accusations of cynicism have a pejorative connotation associated with them, however in this case, the cynicism is entirely justified. Antisthenes, the founder of cynicism, would be well proud.

On the other hand, the goofy permabulls have an entirely different view.

*The Fly says Fuck you, we're going higher.

In the short term, they are probably right.

The Fed Guessing Game

Perhaps every person in the world who owns at least a token parcel of TelstraII shares is wondering what is going through the minds of Uncle Ben and his fellow FOMC (or is it the PPT) cohorts. The Wall Street assholes have been screaming for a base rate cut ever since the sub-prime grenade blew up in their faces.

Most sensible commentators not reliant on fee income caution against such a move; more booze for alcoholics is the basic thinking.

Now we learn that the US economy grew at a 4% rate in the last quarter.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 4 percent in the second quarter, as strong business investment led the fastest pace of expansion since early last year, the government reported Thursday.

The Commerce Department raised its estimate of gross domestic product -- the measure of total goods and services output within U.S. borders -- from a 3.4 percent gain that it published a month ago. That was in line with Wall Street economists' forecasts and far outstripped the first quarter's anemic 0.6 percent rate of expansion.

Admittedly, those figure are for the period before the "credit crunch" and the above article points out that it is not likely to be sustainable, but based on those figures, how can the Fed cut? Other sections of the economy concur that things are just fine and dandy.

I have managed to convince myself that they will cut, caving in to the Wall St assholes, but equally remain convinced that it will be a very bad decision. As many point out, it might not make a hell of a lot of difference, apart from providing for a brief rally. Ultimately, many think we are headed for recession.

If you detect some cognitive dissonance in the above, you are right... mixed messages abound.

So my guess is they cut.