Martin North – Page 40 – Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog

Disappointing US Inflation Data Will Keep The Fed Hawkish…

The last mile of the journey in getting inflation back into its box, is the hardest and most intractable. So while US inflation is much lower than it was the latest release yesterday, ahead of the FED rate decision today shows it’s not declining quickly and remains above the Federal Reserve’s targets.

In summary, core inflation matched market expectations in November, increasing at a marginally faster rate of 0.3%. In annualised trend terms, core inflation is running at 3¼%, with rapid core goods disinflation of 3¾% broadly offsetting faster core services inflation of 5½%. But core services excluding housing inflation has picked up to 6% in annualised trend terms, while the trimmed mean CPI – which gives a sense of the breadth of price rises – has picked back up to 3¾%.

The initial spike in 2021 was driven by goods prices, which had been stable for years. That was mainly thanks to the pandemic’s effect on supply chains. That shock is over. At this point, inflation is almost entirely about core services, which include shelter.

The FOMC won’t change rates this week, but it does get to revise the “dot plot” which shows its projected course of interest rates ahead. That would be a way to assure the market that rates are coming down swiftly, but for now the Fed could be reluctant to do anything that encourages more speculation.

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Market Optimism Continues Thanks To US Soft Landing Hopes…

This is our weekly market update.

As we count down to the end of the year, U.S. stocks closed higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notching their highest closing levels since early 2022 and the Dow notched its longest weekly winning streak since 2019.

A robust U.S. jobs report fuelled investor optimism about a soft landing for the economy and so investors pared bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in March after a Labor Department report showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 199,000 jobs in November, compared with an estimated increase of 180,000.

The unemployment rate slipped to 3.7%, while average earnings edged up to 0.4% on a monthly basis, compared with forecasts of 0.3% growth. The uptick in wage growth, which risks boosting inflation, muddied the optimism for rate cuts, pushing Treasury yields higher, though some economists were quick to downplay the strength of report attributed to the return of employers that were on strike.

“Were it not for the strike, November would have been somewhere around 170k and October would have been around 180,000,” Jefferies said in a Friday note.

Interest rate futures show traders widely expect the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady at its meeting next week. However, futures prices now imply traders mostly expect the Fed to start cutting rates in May, two months later than the March meeting many investors had been betting on in recent days.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed the Reserve Bank of Australia board should aim to return inflation to the middle of the 2 to 3 per cent target band, or 2.5 per cent. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has axed a controversial proposal requiring the Reserve Bank of Australia to give “equal consideration” to full employment and inflation as part of a new agreement that may mean interest rates stay higher for longer.

The backdown followed warnings by the likes of former RBA governor Ian Macfarlane and former treasurer Peter Costello, who said the proposed wording was vague and would make the RBA less accountable for fighting inflation.

IFM Investors chief economist Alex Joiner said targeting the middle of the band made the prospect of a rate cut unlikely until late 2024, given the RBA’s current inflation forecasts do not show it achieving 2.5 per cent inflation at any point in the next couple of years.

Household Financial Pressures And RBA Propaganda…

Next Tuesday I will be running my live show on Household Financial Stress, which continues to worsen. However, what constitutes “stress” is being debated widely – its a matter of definition.

The RBA has joined the debate, but I will argue in today’s show they conveniently presented a lop-sided story, which understates the true picture.

Andrea Brischetto, Head of Financial Stability gave a speech at the Sydney Banking and Financial Stability Conference, University of Sydney, titled Financial Stability and the Financial Health of Australian Mortgagors.

There has understandably been a lot of focus on this issue of late, with many households facing substantial financial pressures from high inflation and higher interest rates. Some of the households feeling these pressures most acutely are those with lower incomes, including many renters.

But the focus was on households with mortgages and how their financial health relates to financial stability.

There has been a lot said and written about the issue of household financial stress in recent times, using a multitude of data sources and reporting on many different individual experiences. Wednesday’s national accounts showed how inflation, tax and interest rates have weighed on real household disposable income. And as RBA Governor Michele Bullock said when discussing the challenge of inflation following the RBA Board meeting this week: High inflation makes life difficult for everyone and damages the functioning of the economy. It erodes the value of savings, hurts household budgets, makes it harder for businesses to plan and invest, and worsens income inequality. The Governor emphasised that the effect of all of this is that many households are experiencing a painful squeeze on their finances.

So she presented an overall picture of the situation, drawing on the RBA’s extensive work in this area, which is published in detail in our regular Financial Stability Review.

You What? The Use Of Cash Is Up!!

An average of more than 50 UK bank branches have closed each month since 2015 and campaigners fear some retailers could stop accepting cash if it becomes too burdensome to process. That said, under government rules, free withdrawals and deposits will need to be available within one mile for people living in urban areas. In rural areas, where there are concerns over “cash deserts”, where the maximum distance is three miles.

This is important because cash remains a necessity for millions of people, research has found, with the elderly and those with disabilities among those likely to struggle. Branches have been more likely to close in disadvantaged areas.

Of course, Banks have pointed to the large reduction in branch use – a trend accelerated by the Covid pandemic – and the popularity of managing money via smartphones, as good reason for diluting their branch network.

But a recent survey by Age UK suggested that, among those who were uncomfortable about digital banking, the key concerns were fraud and scams, a lack of trust in online banking services, and a lack of computer skills.

And now, The British Retail Consortium says cash use has grown for the first time in 10 years as shoppers keep a close eye on their budgets while prices rise, retailers have said. They said 19% of purchases were made with notes and coins last year, echoing a report by banks showing a slight rebound. That’s up from 15% the previous year. Until 2015, notes and coins were used in more than half of transactions and, while card use now dominated, cash still had its benefits. Consumers made smaller but more frequent payments, the survey found.

The consortium said consumers were budgeting carefully to try to cope with cost of living pressures, and there was also a “natural return” for cash after it slumped during the pandemic.

It is essential use of cash is protected, you cannot leave it to the market, where banks are making a killing from extra fees on card transaction costs as a result of removing access to cash.

Paying Tax And Interest Through The Nose In A Deep Per Capita Recession!

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the June quarter National Accounts, which were an unmitigated disaster and confirmed that Australia is in a deep per capita recession.

The economy as measured by real GDP grew by only 0.2% in the September quarter, driven by increased government consumption and capital investment over the quarter and badly missing economists’ expectations of a 0.4% print: Growth over the year was 2.1%, less than population growth over the same period. While the population surge earlier in the year has supported demand overall, it is now rolling over and will not provide the same support in 2024. Or as Luci Ellis, at Westpac put it The Australian economy limped along in the September quarter.

Real per capita GDP has fallen for three of the past five quarters, with the March quarter revised up to flat. Accordingly, GDP per capita fell 0.3% over the year. Expenditure by households was dead flat over the September quarter and would have fallen by around 0.7% per capita. By contrast, growth in both household consumption and GDP over 2023 slowed due to sustained cost of living pressures and higher interest rates. Household consumption would have fallen even further had the savings rate not fallen to just 1.1%, which is the lowest level since December 2007.

The savings rate is now well below the ‘par’ of 6.5% and notionally implies a draw-down on the ‘additional savings’ accumulated during the pandemic – estimated at around $260bn – running at about $12bn a quarter. In total, about $43bn, or 16.5% of this reserve now looks to have been drawn down. Of course these are not equally spread across households, with many now having no buffers at all.

As Westpac put it. the policy drag on Australian households is clearly biting.