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Spin Cycle

spin cycle

December Jobs Growth Misses, Wage Growth Still Weak

Yesterday I was musing about the expected rise in inflation and bond yields that so many professional pundits and talking heads are expecting in 2018. That's the story being bantered about on various mainstream cable news puppet shows. Today we received another reality check on that "pent up demand" and overheating labor market story as the December Jobs Report painted a rather lackluster finish to 2017. The BLS Employment Situation showed an increase of 148,000 jobs in December. That's the good news from the establishment survey. The Household survey (Table A) showed an increase of [...]

Misguided Expectations For Inflation And Bond Yields In 2018

The Federal Reserve has proven they are devoid of credibility when it comes to their advertised mandates of full employment and price stability. What the Fed is good at is the same thing it has always been good at...blowing bubbles and serving the interests of Wall Street banks. Thus it should come as no surprise that many of the clueless PhD economists working for the Federal Reserve are calling for an uptick in inflation in 2018. You know, because the labor market is so "tight" and current inflation is still tepid. The Fed of course [...]

Fed Balance Sheet Unwind Proceeding At Snails Pace

The balance sheet unwind for the Federal Reserve is proceeding at a snails pace. After a rather large jump in the securities holdings last week, we should have seen a resumption in the balance sheet shrinkage. Interestingly the Fed's holdings of Treasury and mortgage securities only fell by $4.8 billion this past week. A look at the weekly System Open Market Account Holdings shows there is a lot of work to do in the last week of the year if the Fed is going to stick to it's stated unwind schedule. While the Fed has [...]

Mortgage Interest Deduction In Play, 2018 Housing Market Still Cloudy

The controversial mortgage interest deduction is still in play if you follow the back and forth in DC, and the picture for housing is still rather cloudy. There is a lot which could change depending on what Congress tries to ram through reconciliation in terms of the House and Senate tax sausage. Regardless of what Congress and the GOP approve, you can rest assured it won't stimulate job growth and it won't contribute to long-term economic growth. What we are seeing play out in the halls of DC and Wall Street right now is a [...]

Flattening Yield Curve & Spiraling Debt – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

All is well in the land of rainbows and unicorns. At least that's the message being floated from DC and their Wall Street handlers. Apparently the economic "recovery" has been so robust that Janet and company at the FOMC have even starting to unwind that massive hedge fund, even if they are doing so at a snails pace. As Professor Anthony Sanders noted, at the current pace of normalization the Fed will manage to unwind the mess they have created in a mere 7 years. Despite all of the rhetoric about tax cuts and economic [...]

Average New Home Size Continues To Shrink

The National Association of Home Builders reported that the median and average size of a new home in the U.S. continued to decline in the third quarter. Third quarter numbers on housing starts show that the median single-family new home size was 2,378 square feet.  The average square footage for new single-family homes declined to 2,518 square feet. According to the NAHB, this is apparently just part of the normal housing cycle. "The post-recession increase in single-family home size is consistent with the historical pattern coming out of recessions. Typical new home size falls prior to and during a [...]

QE Or Bust – US Yield Curve Continues To Flatten

Behold the flattening U.S. yield curve! Reading through the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, you might get the impression that things are still humming along just fine. After all total household debt just hit a new high in the latest survey posting at $12.96 trillion. Mortgage debt is still below the previous bubble peak, so home buyers would appear to be doing doing just fine. If you peak below the headline metrics, however, you begin to see some cracks in the "everything is awesome" narrative. One of the first things that stands [...]

DFW Home Prices Pushing Limits Of Affordability

DFW home prices have been on a tear during the last 5 years. That begs the question of whether the recent price gains are sustainable. The answer to that inquiry generally boils down to who is selling what. In our hyper-financialized housing market it is not surprising when real estate practitioners or lenders suggest that we are not in a housing bubble. Whether you call it a housing bubble or not, there is no denying that the past decade has seen some dramatic shifts in the real estate market. Dallas/Fort Worth is certainly part of [...]

Dallas TX Employment Grows In September

Dallas TX employment continues to march higher. September brought an increase of 15,600 jobs compared to revised August figures. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA region added 93,600 jobs during the past year according to numbers from the Texas Workforce Commission. The official (goal-seeked) unemployment rate for the Dallas area stood at 3.4 percent in September, below the state average of 4 percent. The Dallas employment sector continues to be tight according to many local economists. Pia Orrenius, a senior economist with the Dallas Fed was "encouraged by the data". Even though Hurricane Harvey caused a drop [...]

Dallas Home Prices Challenge Builders

Dallas home prices are expensive, and builders are finally getting the message. That's the news from the most recent data on home starts in the DFW area, which reportedly surged in the 3rd quarter. Builders reportedly started 8,853 single-family homes in the DFW metroplex. For the 12 months ending in September there were apparently 32,234 permits recorded. This was the highest total in a decade. More interestingly, builders' starts for houses under $500,000 rose by 14.5% during the past year. Builders are finally waking up to the fact that the Dallas Fort Worth housing market [...]

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