To me, it is really quite fascinating how obsessed the market and assorted pundits are with the first possible interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve since 2006. The consensus now has this occurring in December. This is especially true given we are some six and half years away from when the recession “officially” ended in June 2009 and we have basically had the Fed Funds rate at zero since the end of 2008.
However, this has not been a normal recovery by any stretch of the imagination. It is the weakest post-war recovery on record and the economy continues to muddle along with a measly two percent GDP growth rate. In contrast, the previous nine post-war recoveries averaged more than four percent annual GDP growth for the four years after their recessions ended.
Even the robust Jobs Reports that came out on November 7th and moved a rate hike in December from “doubtful” to “highly likely” is suspect. Yes, the economy created 271,000 jobs in October and we had the fastest year-over-year wage growth (2.5%) since the financial crisis. U6 unemployment (those workers who are part-time purely for economic reasons) actually dropped under 10% for the first time in recent memory.
However, there are many reasons to believe this was a “one-off” or outlier occurrence. First, labor participation came in at 62.4%, a level not seen since 1977. Second, the report contained no significant upward revisions to prior months’ numbers. In addition, the ADP job reading came in at an 182,000 level. The jobs number caused yields to rise significantly which buoyed financials like banks and insurance stocks. On the flip side, high-yield sectors like Utilities and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) took substantial hits. Outside of Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), retail sales are punk. Inventory levels are high heading into Black Friday as the back to school shopping season was largely a bust.
Europe definitely looks like it could be a continuing story in 2016, and not a good one. Portugal just threw out their center-right government two weeks into their second term as a push back to continuing austerity. The love affair with former firebrand and now Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seems to be over for the same reason. Greek unions called a 24 hour strike for the first time since Tsipras took leadership of the country, holding marches and accusing Tsipras of bowing to creditors and imposing measures that “perpetuate the dark ages for workers.” Then there is the largest migration across the continent since WWII which seems to be accelerating, as if the Eurozone did not have enough to focus on right now.
