It’s been more than two years since the markets hit bottom after the financial crisis of late 2008/early 2009. What a long strange trip it’s been. It may get stranger still. But in the interest of finding some context, it’s useful to compare returns since the trough. Let’s arbitrarily call the end of February 2009 as the bottom. How have markets fared since?
Housing Activity Weakens In April & Industrial Production Is Flat
Today’s update on new housing starts and building permits for April isn’t surprising, but it’s still not encouraging. Permits slipped 4% last month and are down by nearly 13% from a year ago. Housing starts look even worse, falling nearly 11% in April, pushing the seasonally adjusted annual rate down by 24% vs. the year-earlier number.
Slim Index Pickings In 401(k) Plans
Ron Lieber argues that 401(k) plans should offer index funds. “This shouldn’t be a controversial statement,” he writes in a recent New York Times article. “Yet it passes for one in Washington, where regulators and legislators are still mired in a never-ending debate over whether stockbrokers, certain insurance salespeople and others ought to meet that standard, known in legal circles as a fiduciary duty.”
Slower Growth vs. Slow Growth
Manufacturing activity in the state of New York “improved in May, but at a slower pace than in April,” according to this morning’s update of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey from the New York Fed. Meanwhile, the outlook for U.S. economic growth softened a bit according to economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics. “NABE panelists revised their projections for economic growth in 2011 downward compared with their February projections,” says Richard Wobbekind, NABE president in a statement. “Real GDP is expected to grow at a moderate pace of roughly 3 percent in the current year and only slightly faster in 2012.”
Strategic Briefing | 5.16.2011 | US Debt Ceiling
Debt ceiling drama starts today
CNNMoney | May 16
Monday’s the day: The federal debt will hit its legal limit and Congress doesn’t plan to do anything about it. That leaves Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in a bit of a pickle. It now falls to him to jump through hoops every day to keep the world’s largest economy from defaulting on its legal obligations. Geithner told Congress that he estimates he has enough legal hoop-jumping tricks to cover them for another 11 weeks or so. But then he said that’s it. If lawmakers don’t get it together by Aug. 2, the United States will no longer be able to pay its bills in full.
Book Bits For Saturday: 5.14.2011
● The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World
By Michael Spence
Review in The Economist
Never before have so many people grown rich so quickly. Japan was the first country to achieve sustained, high-speed growth, in the post-war years, but it did so alone. A handful of smallish Asian tigers followed. Mr Spence wonders whether that formula can work when 60% of humanity, led by India and China, try the same thing. Globalisation, he notes, has been critical to the rapid growth of emerging markets. But it has also led to rising inequality in the rich countries, and they may now well respond by raising protectionist barriers. Or maybe not. Mr Spence is not sure about this nor, unfortunately, of many of the other issues he tackles. “The Next Convergence” feels less like a book than a transcript of the author thinking out loud about a hotch-potch of contemporary economic issues.
Looking For Demons In Consumer Price Inflation
Headline consumer price inflation (CPI) rose 0.4% last month on a seasonally adjusted basis, or slightly lower than March’s 0.5% increase, the Labor Department reports. That translates into a 3.1% rise over the past year. Inflationary pressures, at least by the government’s reckoning, remain modest. Ditto for the outlook on economic growth, which suggests that inflation isn’t likely to be a major problem for the foreseeable future. The usual suspects will nonetheless scream otherwise, but it’s hard to make that case based on the Labor Department’s numbers.
Jobless Claims Remain Elevated Despite Last Week’s Sharp Decline
Initial jobless claims dropped sharply last week, the Labor Department reports, but we’re still not out of the woods. The recent jump in new filings for jobless benefits went into reverse, but no one can ignore the still-elevated levels for this series. And until we see more reports like this morning’s, there’s going to be some awkward questions.
Inflation Expectations Retreat
Commodity prices have tumbled recently, and inflation expectations have been pared too, albeit only modestly. Is there a connection? Yes, or so it appears. But for the same reason that we should be cautious in reading too much into the inflation outlook based on a surge in prices of raw materials, the caveat applies when prices fall. Short-term commodity prices are too volatile to use as a lone source for gauging prospective inflation. Nonetheless, it’s hard to overlook the recent shift in the Treasury market’s forecast.
Research Review | 5.11.2011 | Equal Weighted Portfolios
Update on MSCI Equal Weighted Indices
MSCI Research Bulletin | Dec. 2010
This paper illustrates the effect of equal weighting an index relative to a capitalization weighted index. An equal weighted index exhibits a small cap and value tilt, lower index concentration, and more stable sector weights. However, an equal weighted index has higher index turnover and lower investment capacity relative to a capitalization weighted index. Over the last twelve years (December 1998 to October 2010) the MSCI Equal Weighted Indices outperformed their capitalization weighted counterparts in the major countries and regions analyzed. This outperformance appears to be mainly driven by the small cap and value tilt, which are well-documented sources of excess return in financial literature.