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Soft Spots Go Beyond Employment

One of the odder bits of analyses we have happened across over the holidays is this bit of explicative: “Of course employment has lagged prior recoveries, as we have been adding jobs from unusually high levels of employment.”

As you may have surmised, we find this explanation wanting. First, it fails to address the issue of NILFs – the millions of people who are no longer in the Labor force (See Participation Rate, 2000-2005). As we have noted before, the basis for this is the false comparison with prior post WWII recoveries, rather than post-Bubble environments.

Second, it fails to recognize that across the entire economy, the recovery has been sub-par. As the nearby chart reveals, excepting Real Estate, all other areas show relative weakness to prior recoveries, including GDP, Personal Income, Consumption, Equipment and Software.

Indeed, recent data has revealed several ominous signs about the economy. The holiday shopping season was significantly below consensus. We also expect that prevalent deep discounting will affect Retailer’s profit margins; we interpret these data points, combined with the generally weak December Retail, as proof the consumer has finally started to tire. And, it has only begun to bite into sales.

Also noteworthy is that even Real Estate has started to show signs of distress. Inflation, driven primarily by overseas commodity demand, remains robust, and the Fed can do little about it, short of inducing a global slowdown. And as recent events in Nigeria and Iran have made all too clear, the world’s economy is hardly insulated from the impact of yet another energy shock.

Thus, it is against this backdrop that we begin what is likely to be the last earnings season of double digit growth. With 67 S&P members reporting this week, and nearly half – about 30 – in the financial sector, we will get an early read on how the flattened and just inverted yield curve is impacting earnings of this key sector. We are expecting only a modest influence on financials as of yet. The more pronounced effects may not be felt until later this year.

Besides, the bulk of the S&P500 year-over-year earnings gains have not been reliant on the financial sector. Instead, about half of the gains have been a function of energy sector earnings. We can chalk up about a third of the year-over-year gains to the half a trillion dollars in share buybacks last year. Thus, market gains remain perversely dependent upon high energy prices and share repurchases – hardly the historic basis for sustained performance . . .

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 | 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments

"Also noteworthy is that even Real Estate has started to show signs of distress. "

WHERE? Provide link. I like buying into "signs of distress"!

Posted by: Larry, Scottsdale | Jan 17, 2006 9:46:56 PM

try this:

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/real_estate_/index.html

Posted by: Barry Ritholtz | Jan 17, 2006 10:28:23 PM

The late 90's were such an anomoly, though. I just think that kind of economy comes along once a generation or so, and then crashes because Nirvana isn't sustainable on Planet Earth. It's just hard to come down from that high. This (what we have now) is more sustainable, don't you think?

Posted by: muckdog | Jan 18, 2006 12:00:21 AM

There is commodity inflation but there is also monetary inflation and a lot of it.

Posted by: Jordan | Jan 18, 2006 1:24:43 AM

I'm unemployed, and my unemployment benefits have run out. There are many like me. Please help the country with some information that you may be able to obtain :

? What if I, and all who are not currently eligible, register every week? Will that number be recorded? It will be researched in order to be turned down. Is there any way for us to be recognized?

Thanks,
RWC, a member of society not represented correctly.

Posted by: rwc | Jan 18, 2006 3:04:17 AM