CONSUMER WATCH
From Bank of America Institute:
Overall, as we head into the holidays, the consumer continues to show forward momentum. Bank of America aggregated credit and debit card spending per household rose 1.0% year-over-year (YoY) in October, rebounding from a 0.9% YoY decline in September. On a seasonally adjusted basis (SA), spending fell 0.1% month-over-month (MoM), after a 0.6% MoM rise in September.
(…) by the last week of October, average card spending per household recovered in the states affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton by the last week of October, up 2% YoY after declining nearly 8% YoY during the third week of October. Meanwhile, spending growth was positive throughout the month for the rest of the United States.
When we look by category, spending on necessity goods such as gasoline has been weak over the last three months, reflecting recent deflation in this category. Additionally, spending on groceries has been modest, reflecting slowing inflation for food consumed at home.
It could be that the slowing of the pace of inflation has left more room in consumer budgets for discretionary services like restaurants, which has had three consecutive months of strengthening. This could also explain the growing contribution of discretionary services spending to overall aggregate card spending growth in the past few months. (…)
This year’s improvement in higher-income spending growth is consistent with the recovery in after-tax wage and salary growth, according to Bank of America deposit data. Meanwhile, wages are also growing steadily for lower- and middle-income peers over 2023 and 2024, although there has been some deceleration in the rate of growth at the lower end over the past year. (…)
- The October 2024 Survey of Consumer Expectations shows median household spending growth expectations were unchanged at 4.9%, well above pre-pandemic levels and inflation.
Small Businesses Gain Optimism in October
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose 2.2 points to 93.7, tied with July for the biggest over-the-month jump this year. Most components improved over the month, the most substantial being a seven-point surge in expectations for better business conditions.
Yet, looking past the headline improvement in optimism, the underlying details suggest that small businesses are standing on shaky economic ground.
Small business sales plummeted to its weakest reading since July 2020 while labor demand continued to deteriorate. Although hurricanes Helene and Milton likely explain softer hiring in October, plans for future hiring also continued to stall, remaining essentially unchanged since May.
On the upside, inflation pressures continued to slowly ease, and the Fed’s first rate cut in September seems to already be improving borrowing conditions for small businesses. (…)
The net percent of owners with job openings rose to 35%, just a tick above September and the second lowest reading since January 2021. Hiring plans also continued to stall. A net 15% of small businesses planned to add payrolls over the next three months, essentially unchanged since May. Overall, 53% of owners reported hiring or trying to hire in October, down 6 points from September. (…)
A net 21% of firms in October reported raising their selling prices over the past three months, a one point dip from September and significantly below the 30% share in October 2023. Reports of higher prices were most frequent among firms in services industries where inflation remains the stickiest. Construction firms also reported higher prices, a product of elevated input costs and scarcer labor supply.
(…) small business owners appear more optimistic about future demand than current conditions seem to warrant. The net percent of firms expecting higher real sales jumped five points to -4%, accompanied by a similar, albeit smaller bump in earnings expectations. Yet, reports of actual sales deteriorated to its weakest reading since July 2020 (-20%).
- The Fed’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey was also released today. It showed that commercial banks are more willing to lend. Credit conditions have eased significantly, reducing the risk of a credit crunch and a recession. That’s bullish for earnings and for valuations. Under the circumstances, it’s not clear why the Fed is committed to more cuts in the federal funds rate. (Ed Yardeni)
OPEC Cuts Global Oil Demand Growth Forecasts For a Fourth Consecutive Month Group’s estimate of 2024 oil consumption down 18% since July
Global oil consumption will increase by 1.8 million barrels a day — just under 2% — in 2024, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in a monthly report. That’s 107,000 barrels a day less than previously forecast after data from across Asian nations like China and India, as well Africa, arrived below expectations, it said.
OPEC has scaled back this year’s demand growth projections by almost a fifth since July, in keeping with a sharp retreat in crude prices. Yet the cartel’s outlook remains significantly more bullish than other forecasters — from Wall Street banks and trading houses, and even Saudi Arabia’s oil company, Aramco. It’s roughly double the rate anticipated by the International Energy Agency. (…)
OPEC predicts that world oil consumption will average 104 million barrels a day this year. Daily demand will increase by a further 1.5 million barrels in 2025, or 103,000 barrels less than the organization previously forecast.
OPEC’s rival institution, the Paris-based IEA, will release its latest monthly assessment of global oil markets on Thursday. It has predicted that demand growth will slow as the world shifts away from fossil fuels toward electric vehicles, in a bid to avert disastrous climate change.
Private-Credit Boom Has Echoes of Subprime, Warns Senior Central Banker
The rapid rise of private credit poses a threat to financial stability, and banks don’t even know the extent of their exposure to the growing asset class, warned a senior European central banker.
An estimated $2 trillion has poured into private credit, a loose term for loans and other financing provided to companies by nonbank lenders such as insurers and funds.
The loans usually are to riskier borrowers, companies that typically don’t have credit ratings or file public financial reports. The main appeal for investors is higher yields, and not having to register market-price fluctuations in their portfolios.
“It’s entirely appropriate to be much more insistent on detailed visibility so systemic financial instability is not the result and so that individual bank failures are not the result,” said Elizabeth McCaul, a European Central Bank supervisory board member.
In an interview before her five-year ECB term ends this month, McCaul said the central bank recently found that lenders couldn’t identify their overall exposure from financing they extend to private credit funds. They also don’t always know when companies they lend to are additionally receiving private credit.
She said there has to be more reporting and transparency to address the red flags she and other authorities see around leverage, opacity and valuation.
“I worry about an amplification of the positions that banks hold, whether those be market positions or credit positions, where there are duplications of positions that aren’t visible,” McCaul said.
She said she is also concerned about how private-credit providers, many of which haven’t been through a downturn, make lending decisions and use “mark-to-model” techniques to value companies.
McCaul, who earlier was New York Superintendent of Banks and held senior roles at Promontory Financial, said she saw similarities with 1998’s Long Term Capital Management blowup and the subprime-mortgage lending that fueled the 2008 financial crisis.
These incidents and 2021’s Archegos family-office default show how banks can suffer big losses when they don’t have a full picture of the risks. They also all highlighted gaps in regulation, McCaul said.
She said a former boss liked to quote: “There is no education in the second kick of a mule.”
