Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Two Ways to Tell if the U.S. Economy is Ready to Rebound

Economics / Economic Recovery Aug 27, 2010 - 06:13 AM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Economics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleShah Gilani writes: The U.S. economy has been crippled by the financial crisis. And regardless of what policymakers try to do to spur growth, it will hobble along lamely until two major economic pillars are rectified.

Simply put, there's no chance that stock investors will see a healthy, long-term bull market until credit again begins to flow freely and home prices start rising.


Unfortunately, neither the credit market nor the housing market is yet ready to lead a sustainable economic rebound. But knowing that these are the two legs on which our economy stands, we can effectively gauge their condition, and thus be better able to predict a stock market rally.

Let me explain.

The Credit Crutch
When evaluating the health of the economy, the first place to look is right in the pocket of the American consumer. Consumer spending accounts for between 66%-70% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). There simply isn't much hope for the economy if consumers aren't spending. And consumers can't spend freely if they don't have access to credit.

Consumer spending also drives the stock market. At this point, it doesn't matter how productive companies become or how much they cut expenses and overhead; if there's slack demand for their goods and services, they won't meet revenue expectations and stock prices will suffer.

The "Great Recession" has forced many U.S. companies to clean their houses by trimming waste, expenses, and overhead. Also, thanks to low interest rates, businesses can refinance their debts to save on interest expenses. All that is missing is for the demand side of the equation to pick up.

But therein lies the economy's, and by extension, the stock market's problem.

The prospect of a double-dip recession has nothing to do with the health of most of America's companies. What matters is whether or not inexpensive, long-term credit is available to spur demand and consumption.

What's worrisome right now is that big banks aren't anxious to extend credit in the form of direct loans, mortgages, or revolving credit lines. It's a lot safer for them to borrow money from one another and the U.S. Federal Reserve at next to nothing, and then buy risk-free government treasuries and agency paper than it is to extend credit to borrowers in a potentially faltering economy.

The fear that interest rates are close to bottoming out is another impediment to big banks freely extending credit. Because banks borrow on a very short-term basis they have to constantly roll over their short-term borrowings. If short-term rates start rising, banks' funding costs rise, and that erodes margins on the long-term loans they've made. It's even possible for banks to lose money on their loan portfolios if they haven't matched up long loans with short borrowing costs.

While smaller community banks and middle-market regional banks have the same funding issues that big banks have, they don't have the size and clout of the too-big-to-fail banks, so their borrowing costs are actually higher. So is their cost of equity, because investors know they aren't too big to fail. These banks also have smaller commercial loans on their books that they can't offload or refinance as easily as the big banks can. Giant distressed loans are more appealing to institutional and hedge fund investors than the smaller types of loans made more locally by community banks.

Lastly, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and other bank regulators have been playing catch-up in their bank monitoring efforts. Regulators are hitting an increasing number of institutions with enforcement actions, even though it's too little, too late. As regulators look into banks to assess risk management, risk-based capital ratios, credit quality and how losses are accrued, they're finding a lot that they don't like. Enforcement actions are demands to clean up deficiencies, fix accounting issues, shake up management and often require institutions to increase capital.

The net result of these enforcement actions is that management assessment reports create an unwelcome record of problems and deficiencies that scares off equity investors and provides fodder for future lawsuits against bank boards and their officers. In an environment of heightened scrutiny it's unlikely that these banks will be willing to add to their loan books while facing funding, accounting, regulatory and legal headwinds.

Since the extension of credit to consumers by banks is so critical to economic growth, it makes sense for an investor to monitor whether credit to consumers is expanding or contracting,

To follow credit extension trends go to the Federal Reserve's website: www.federalreserve.gov. Click first on the "Economic Research & Data" tab and then the "Data Download Program" link on the left side of the screen. Under the heading "Principal Economic Indicators" click on "Consumer Credit-G.19." From there you can download consumer credit data.

Healing Housing
The major leg of the U.S. economy is the residential real estate market.

Simply put, most Americans' largest asset is their home. Homes are a source of pride and stability, and as home prices appreciate, Americans "feel" wealthier and can tap into their home equity when they're in need of a loan.

The National Association of Home Builders estimates that housing contributes between 17%-18% to GDP. It's also a fact that consumer spending related to housing upkeep, appliances, furniture and decoration has a powerful ripple effect throughout the economy.

Putting a floor under sliding housing prices is critical to consumer confidence, consumer health, and the entire economy.

Unfortunately, fixing the residential real estate market may be America's most intractable problem. It's going to require a whole new set of regulatory, lending, and securitization practices.

Smoothing out all of the interconnected pieces of the very complicated residential real estate fabric will be a long, painstaking process. And it's one that investors should carefully monitor. So keep an eye on home price trends and sales numbers.

You can do this by going to www.realtor.org. Click on the "Existing-Home Sales" link under the "Housing Statistics" header. There you'll get the latest housing sales and price data with comparisons to previous months, as well as trend commentary.

Consumer spending and the housing market drive the economy. So knowing if credit extension trends and residential real estate pricing and sales trends are negative or positive will help you navigate the murky depths of this recovery.

More importantly, knowing when those trends have turned positive will give you the strongest signal possible that the direction of the stock market will undoubtedly be up, up and away.


[Editor's Note: Shah Gilani, a retired hedge-fund manager and renowned financial-crisis expert, walks the walk. In a recent Money Morning exposé, Gilani warned that high-frequency traders (HFT) were artificially pumping up market-volume numbers, meaning stocks were extremely susceptible to a downdraft.

When that downdraft came, Gilani was ready - and so were subscribers to his new advisory service: The Capital Wave Forecast. The next morning, because of that market move, investors were up 186% on a short-term euro play, and more than 300% on a call-option play on the VIX volatility index.

Gilani shows investors the monster "capital waves" now forming, will demonstrate how to profit from every one, and will make sure to highlight the market pitfalls that all too often sweep investors away.

Take a moment to check out Gilani's capital-wave-investing strategy - and the profit opportunities that he's watching as a result. And take a look at some of his most-recent essays, which are available free of charge. To read one of his most-popular essays, please click here.]

Source : http://moneymorning.com/2010/08/27/u.s.-economy-6/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2010 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investent advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or 72 hours after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in