FOMC Minutes are huge this month

By Phil

Beware the head fake from the meeting. There is nothing here to get excited about but you’d think the Fed just annonced negative 3% interest from the way they are punching things up again. Watch the Nas – they are not participating and below 2,300 for the first time in days.

FOMC Minutes are huge this month. Highlights are:

Financial conditions generally had become somewhat more supportive of economic growth. Since the Committee met in November, the Federal Reserve’s total assets were about unchanged, at nearly $2.2 trillion, as the increase in the System’s holdings of securities roughly matched a further decline in usage of the System’s credit and liquidity facilities.

The TALF expanded modestly, supporting issuance of asset-backed securities collateralized by consumer, small business, and student loans as well as commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). Indeed, over the intermeeting period, TALF lending supported the first new CMBS issue since June 2008.

Staff Review of the Economic Situation
The information reviewed at the December 15-16 meeting suggested that the recovery in economic activity was gaining momentum. The pace of job losses slowed noticeably in recent months, and total hours worked increased in November; however, the unemployment rate remained quite elevated. Industrial production sustained the broad-based expansion that began in the third quarter, but capacity utilization remained very low. Consumer spending expanded solidly in October, reflecting in part a faster pace of motor vehicle sales. Both light vehicle sales and total retail sales rose again in November. Sales of new homes increased significantly in recent months, a development that, given the slow pace of construction, reduced the inventory of unsold new homes; sales of existing homes rose strongly. Spending on equipment and software continued to stabilize, but investment in nonresidential structures declined further as conditions in nonresidential real estate markets remained poor. Both imports and exports continued to recover from their depressed levels of earlier this year, and the U.S. trade deficit in September and October was wider than in earlier months. Although a jump in energy prices pushed up headline inflation somewhat, core consumer price inflation remained subdued.

Data received over the intermeeting period suggested that the pace of job loss slowed considerably in recent months relative to the steep declines that occurred in the first half of the year. The average decline in private payrolls in October and November was much smaller than in the third quarter; that recent improvement was widespread across industries. The length of the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers increased in November; moreover, aggregate hours worked registered the first substantial increase since the recession began. The unemployment rate dropped in November but remained quite high, while the labor force participation rate continued to decrease. The four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment benefits declined somewhat through early December. Continuing claims for unemployment insurance through regular state programs also moved down, but the average length of spells of unemployment continued to increase.

After expanding briskly in the third quarter, industrial production increased further in October and November. The gains continued to be fairly broad based, and were particularly strong for consumer durables and materials. Business surveys suggested that factory output would advance further in the coming months. Capacity utilization rose again in November, but remained at a very low level by historical standards.

Real personal consumption expenditures increased at a solid pace in October, with broad-based advances in both goods and services. The data for nominal retail sales in November showed continued widespread improvement, particularly at general merchandise stores, electronics and appliance stores, and nonstore retailers. Outlays for motor vehicles bounced back in October after a slump in September that followed the end of the "cash-for-clunkers" program in August. Sales of new light vehicles increased again in November. Real disposable personal income rose in October, reflecting modest gains in nominal labor income; moreover, the increase in real after-tax income during the spring and summer was revised up. The latest readings from indexes of consumer sentiment remained within the relatively low range that prevailed over the previous six months, apparently still weighed down by weak labor market conditions and prior declines in household net worth.

Housing construction held fairly steady in recent months, while demand for housing continued to firm. Single-family housing starts remained roughly flat from June to November at levels only modestly above those reported earlier in the year. In the much smaller multifamily sector, where tight credit conditions persisted and vacancies stayed elevated, the average pace of starts in October and November decreased somewhat from the already very low rate in the third quarter. In contrast, sales of existing single-family homes increased significantly again in October. Sales of new homes also rose in October after two months of little change. With sales continuing to outpace construction, the inventory of unsold new homes declined to its lowest level in three years. The recent increases in sales likely reflected improved fundamentals: The average interest rate on 30-year conforming fixed-rate mortgages declined to less than 5 percent, and surveys suggested that households now expected home prices to be fairly stable over the next year. Although some house price indexes declined a little in September and October, they remained above the troughs reached last spring.

Real spending on equipment and software was estimated to have risen slightly in the third quarter after falling sharply for more than a year. Increased outlays for transportation equipment and high-tech goods accounted for the stabilization. Outside of those sectors, spending declined a bit further in the third quarter, although not as steeply as it had earlier in the year. Shipments of transportation and high-tech equipment remained strong in October, but shipments of nondefense capital goods excluding those categories declined, and new orders fell sharply across a range of products. Business purchases of motor vehicles rose significantly again in November. Moreover, monthly surveys of business conditions, sentiment, and capital spending plans pointed to a moderate rise in business spending going forward. In contrast, conditions in the nonresidential construction sector generally remained quite poor. For instance, real outlays on structures outside of the drilling and mining sector plunged in the third quarter. Also in the third quarter, vacancy rates on nonresidential properties rose further, and property prices continued to fall amid difficult financing conditions. The book value of manufacturing and trade inventories excluding motor vehicles and parts increased in October for the first time in more than a year, even as the ratio of such inventories to sales declined further. Capital markets continued to become somewhat more supportive of business investment over the intermeeting period. In contrast, available data indicated that banks continued to raise spreads on business loans.

The U.S. international trade deficit was somewhat wider in September and October than in previous months. Exports of goods and services increased sharply, and the gains were broadly distributed across most major categories of exports. After surging in September, imports flattened out in October, although the slowing almost entirely reflected reduced oil purchases. Most other categories of imports, including automotive goods, industrial supplies other than oil and gold, consumer goods, and capital goods, posted solid increases in the past two months.

In the United States, the latest data indicated that total consumer price inflation turned up in recent months, while core consumer price inflation remained subdued. The higher readings on headline consumer price inflation were the result of a rebound in energy prices. Core consumer prices increased modestly in October and were unchanged in November. Median year-ahead inflation expectations in the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers declined in early December, and the same survey’s measure of longer-term inflation expectations moved down to the lower end of the narrow range that prevailed over the previous few years. Revised data showed solid increases in hourly compensation in the second and third quarters, along with quite rapid productivity growth and a further decline in unit labor costs. Average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory workers increased modestly, on average, in October and November.

Staff Review of the Financial Situation
Debt of the private domestic nonfinancial sector appeared to be declining again in the fourth quarter, as estimates suggested a further drop in household debt and a tick down in nonfinancial business debt. Consumer credit contracted for the ninth consecutive month in October, reflecting a steep decline in revolving credit that offset a small increase in nonrevolving credit. Issuance of consumer credit asset-backed securities rebounded in November from its subdued pace in October. Moreover, with support from the TALF, the first CMBS issue in nearly 18 months came to market. A few other CMBS deals were subsequently completed without support from the TALF. Business debt was held down in November by another drop in bank loans, as well as a decrease in CP outstanding, though the latter was concentrated among a few large firms. In contrast, gross issuance of investment- and speculative-grade bonds was robust in November. The federal government continued to issue debt at a brisk pace, and gross issuance of state and local government debt remained strong in November.

Commercial bank credit decreased further in November, although the pace of decline slowed relative to recent months. Commercial and industrial (C&I) loans continued to drop, likely reflecting weak demand and a continued tightening of credit terms by banks. The Survey of Terms of Business Lending conducted in November indicated that the average C&I loan rate spread over comparable-maturity market instruments rose for the fifth consecutive survey. The runoff in commercial real estate loans continued, consistent with the further weakening of fundamentals in that sector. Bank loans to households rose, reflecting a slowdown in loan sales to the housing-related government-sponsored enterprises that resulted in a modest increase in banks’ on-balance-sheet holdings of closed-end residential mortgages in November. However, home equity loans and consumer loans fell again. According to third-quarter Call Report data, unused loan commitments shrank for the seventh consecutive quarter, though the rate of decline slowed, especially for commitments to lend to businesses. The aggregate profitability of the banking sector turned positive in the third quarter, but most of the increase was due to strong earnings at a few large institutions. Credit quality appeared to worsen as delinquency and charge-off rates increased further for most major loan categories. Banks’ regulatory capital ratios increased again as banks continued to raise equity and shrink their balance sheets.

M2 expanded at a moderate rate in November. As was the case in recent months, liquid deposits grew rapidly, while small time deposits and retail money market mutual funds contracted, albeit at slightly slower paces. Currency declined somewhat in November as foreign demand for U.S. banknotes appeared to ebb, consistent with the continued stabilization in most global financial markets.

Concerns about the potential for default by some sovereign borrowers rose over the intermeeting period. News that the Dubai government had requested a standstill on debts owed by Dubai World, a government-owned corporation, temporarily roiled some financial markets. However, those pressures eased as investors concluded that Dubai World’s difficulties were likely to be isolated. Subsequently, the sovereign debt rating for Greece was lowered amid long-standing concerns over its public finances and a widening of its sovereign CDS spreads.

Although the central banks of the major foreign industrial economies kept policy rates on hold, the Bank of England expanded its asset purchase program and the Bank of Japan announced a new secured lending facility. In contrast, the European Central Bank took some initial steps toward scaling back emergency lending. It announced that the one-year refinancing operation in December would be its last and that the cost of the funds provided would float with interest rates set in future refinancing operations rather than being fixed as in previous such operations.