21 Dec 2001

Posted at 15:13h in The Friday Brief by
Did you really expect the U.S. Senate to come together at the last minute to craft a stimulus bill in time for Christmas?  The last target date for such an economic lifesaver was Thanksgiving.  They are further apart now than they were before Thanksgiving.  Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle “Dr. No,” said the Senate wouldn’t take up the stimulus bill passed by the House early Thursday, or any other stimulus bill this year.  He left open the possibility that talks will resume when Congress returns in late January.  Investors took their anger to the markets yesterday as the Dow and S&P fell almost 1%.  The battered NASDAQ fell 3.25% on the failure because of its heavy dependence on an economic recovery.  Bondholders are paying attention to the bill because passage would lead to more government borrowing, while defeat would cap the supply of Treasury debt making bonds more expensive and rates lower. 

14 Dec 2001

Posted at 15:27h in The Friday Brief by
To the casual observer, this week’s markets seem overly concerned with news that should have been expected and already priced into stocks.  We know, for instance, that a recession means higher unemployment numbers, declining payrolls, and weaker retail sales.  So why did it seem like investors ran for the exits this week after the buying spree of the week before?  The answer lies somewhere between human nature and the tax code.  Last week saw a market poised shake off months of pessimism in favor of the possibility that the economy would be turning soon.  Stocks rallied as investors and portfolio managers bought to avoid being left behind in case a new bull market was emerging.  Another common characteristic of investors is their tendency to hold positions with losses as long as possible hoping that time will reduce their losses.  As the year comes to a close, investors must sell their losses to recognize them for tax purposes.  Some years the process is orderly.  This year’s tax selling season will likely be more erratic because of the significant losses sustained by investors in 2001, generally bad economic news, and disappointing quarterly corporate earnings reports.  Sellers may panic into ‘selling at any price’ on market decline days, forcing some stocks to decline further than they would in more normal markets. 

07 Dec 2001

Posted at 15:42h in The Friday Brief by
In April of 1991, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that a recession had begun eight months earlier in July of 1990.  They later announced that same recession had ended in March of 1991.  The recession was actually over and recovery in progress before the recession was officially declared.  The same official body recently declared that our economy entered a recession in March of this year. The economy contracted at a 1.1% annual rate between July and September as consumer spending slowed, business spending slumped, and companies slashed inventories. It is the largest decline since the first quarter of 1991, at the end of the previous recession. 

30 Nov 2001

Posted at 15:46h in The Friday Brief by
Often, the fear of the monster lurking in the darkness is greater than the actual sight of it.  The monster’s out, the U.S. is in recession.  The National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday said the U.S. entered a recession in March even though contraction did not actually show up until the third quarter.  A common definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, but the NBER, considered the official arbiter, relies on a variety of factors to determine the state of the economy.  Most expect contraction in the fourth quarter of this year as well.  On that news the markets actually rallied for a couple of days.