Last week delivered a mixed bag of financial and economic news.

 

As many expected, the U.S. economy did not fare well during the second quarter. COVID-19 lockdowns and business closings caused productivity to fall by one-third. Real gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced by our country, dropped 32.9 percent during the second quarter of 2020, reported the Bureau of Economic Analysis. During the first quarter of the year, productivity fell by 5 percent.

 

The Federal Reserve held its Federal Open Market Committee meeting last week. Fed Chair Jerome Powell committed to "...using our tools to do what we can, and for as long as it takes, to provide some relief and stability, to ensure that the recovery will be as strong as possible, and to limit lasting damage to the economy."

 

Powell also said, "Elected officials have the power to tax and spend and to make decisions about where we, as a society, should direct our collective resources. The fiscal policy actions that have been taken thus far have made a critical difference to families, businesses, and communities across the country. Even so, the current economic downturn is the most severe in our lifetimes."

 

Our elected officials were unable to reach an agreement about how to support unemployed Americans whose jobs disappeared because of COVID-19. Enhanced unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions both expired at the end of last week. Congress met over the weekend and officials indicated they had made progress in negotiations, reported The Washington Post.

 

Earnings offered a glimmer of positive news for investors. Al Root of Barron's reported, "...companies are crushing overly bearish estimates...More than 300 [Standard & Poor's 500 Index] companies have reported second-quarter numbers so far. About 85 percent are beating Wall Street earnings estimates by an average of 22 percent."

 

Overall, blended earnings for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index (S&P 500) has declined 35.7 percent. If that is the actual change in earnings for the second quarter, it would be the biggest year-over-year decline since the fourth quarter of 2008 when earnings dropped 69.1 percent.

 

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composites both gained last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Index finished the week lower.

 

S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.

Sources: Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, djindexes.com, London Bullion Market Association.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.

 

Fast food for thought. In 1986, The Economist developed a tasty way to assess whether currencies are trading as they should be: The Big Mac Index.

 

In theory, countries' exchange rates should allow a person to buy the same product - in this case, a burger - for the same amount of money in any currency. In reality, currencies are often undervalued or overvalued. When an analyst says a country's currency is undervalued relative to the U.S. dollar, it means a burger costs less in that country than it does in the United States.

 

For example, in June 2020, a fancy burger cost about $5.71 in the United States. In Britain, it cost £3.39, which is about $4.46 using last week's exchange rate. That makes a British burger a lot less expensive than a U.S. burger. If the currencies were aligned properly, the burger should have cost £4.34. So, the British pound is undervalued relative to the U.S. dollar.

 

In June, visitors to Switzerland paid more for burgers than they would have in the United States. A Swiss burger cost SFr6.50 or about $7.15 in June 2020. If the currencies were aligned, the burger would have cost about SFr5.19.

 

The cheapest burger in the world was found in South Africa, where it sold for 31.00 rand or $1.83 in June. If the currencies had been in parity, then a South African burger would have cost 96.97 rand. You also can buy a burger for less in China. The Economist explained, "A [burger] costs 21.70 yuan in China and $5.71 in the United States...[This] suggests the Chinese yuan is 45.7 percent undervalued."

 

The Big Mac Index should be taken with a grain of salt. It's an imprecise tool some economists find hard to swallow because the price of a burger should be lower in countries with lower labor costs, and higher in countries with higher labor costs. When index prices are adjusted for labor, the Thai baht and Brazilian real are the world's most overvalued currencies relative to the U.S. dollar, while the Hong Kong dollar and the Russian ruble are the most undervalued.

 

 

"There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded."

                                                                                                                                                                                                       --Mark Twain, Humorist

Is the United States economy recovering or faltering?

 

It depends on who you ask and which data you consider. For example, last week, the Department of Labor reported fewer people applied for first-time unemployment benefits during the week of July 11. That could be a tick in the positive data column. Week-to-week the number declined from 1.31 million to 1.30 million. The lackluster decline could be a tick in the negative data column since the long-term weekly average is about 20 percent of that number.

 

There was positive news about progress on COVID-19 vaccines last week. The hope it inspired was tempered by reports the number of new cases continued to grow in a majority of U.S. states.

 

Concern about the resurgence of the virus negatively affected consumer sentiment during the first half of July. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey reported, "The promising gain recorded in June was reversed, leaving the Sentiment Index in early July insignificantly above the April low (+1.4 points)."

 

Uncertainty is reflected in the divergent stories told by stock and bond markets.

 

The year-to-date return for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index moved briefly into positive territory last week before finishing slightly down, reported Financial Times. That's an impressive run for a benchmark that was down more than 30 percent in late March. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has been in positive territory for a while.

 

Last week, Mike Wilson, Chief U.S. Equity Strategist at Morgan Stanley said, "The bottom line, equity markets have been telling us growth is going to surprise on the upside."

 

Bond markets have been less optimistic. Yields on U.S. Treasuries remain exceptionally low, suggesting investors continue to seek safe havens amidst uncertainty about the future. On January 2, 2020, 10-year Treasury notes yielded 1.88 percent. Last week, the yield was 0.63 percent.

 

On a recent earnings call, Jamie Dimon, chairman of JPMorgan Chase, shared his thoughts on the state of the economy. "Can I just amplify it? In a normal recession unemployment goes up, delinquencies go up, charge-offs go up, home prices go down; none of that's true here...Savings are up, incomes are up, home prices are up. So you will see the effect of this recession; you're just not going to see it right away because of all the stimulus...you're going to have a much murkier economic environment going forward than you had in May and June, and you have to be prepared for that..."

 

Markets may remain volatile until the economic picture gains some clarity.

 

S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.

Sources: Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, djindexes.com, London Bullion Market Association.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.

 

STOP MAKING CENTS? You may not have noticed, but there is a coin shortage in the United States. National Public Radio explained:

 

"Supermarkets and gas stations across the U.S. are asking shoppers to pay with a card or produce exact change when possible. [A big box store] has converted some of its self-checkout registers to accept only plastic. [A grocery chain] is offering to load change that would normally involve coins onto loyalty cards."

 

Social distancing, and other safety measures taken to slow the spread of COVID-19, also slowed the U.S. Mint's coin production. In June, the Federal Reserve began rationing coins, and convened a task force to investigate the issue.

 

With coins in the public eye, it may be time to resurrect the 'Kill the penny' movement, suggested Greg Rosalsky of Planet Money.

 

In 2019, 60 percent of the coins produced by the U.S. Mint were pennies. The majority of the Mint's coin-producing time was spent making about seven billion pennies. The problem is pennies cost more to produce than they are worth as currency.

 

According to the U.S. Mint's 2019 Annual Report, "The unit cost for both pennies (1.99 cents) and nickels (7.62 cents) remained above face value for the fourteenth consecutive fiscal year." In other words, the Mint lost more than $72 million making pennies last year.

 

How often do you use pennies and nickels?

 

"Money often costs too much."

                                                                                                                                                                                                      --Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher and essayist

 

Best regards,

 

Please don't scream inside your heart.

 

Last week, a reopened Japanese theme park asked patrons to wear masks to help reduce the spread of coronavirus. It also asked them not to scream while riding the rollercoaster. "Please scream inside your heart," park management urged.

 

During 2020, stock markets in the United States have taken investors on an emotional rollercoaster ride. By late March, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index had lost more than 30 percent. The Index has since regained most of those losses, although there have been many ups and downs along the way.

 

The culprits behind market volatility have been fear and uncertainty, often inspired by twists and turns in the coronavirus saga. Last week, as stocks faltered and demand for U.S. government bonds surged, Eric Platt and Colby Smith of Financial Times reported:

 

"The strong demand for [safe] haven assets emerged after several U.S. states reported further increases in coronavirus cases, after Florida on Thursday recorded its largest death toll since the crisis spread to the United States. Some succor was provided to nervous investors on Friday after [a pharmaceutical company] released data showing its potential coronavirus treatment...had reduced mortality rates in early trials. That provided a bump to stocks and tempered the gains in Treasuries."

 

Volatile markets often cause investors to become uneasy. Sometimes, the emotional rollercoaster causes them to focus on short-term performance rather than long-term financial goals. Today, market fluctuations, in tandem with health concerns, work anxiety, and social distancing requirements, may trigger a stronger response than usual, making investors particularly vulnerable to the emotional biases within us.

 

If short-term market swings are making you restless or uncomfortable, don't keep it to yourself. This is a good time to re-evaluate your risk tolerance, review your financial goals, and make sure you have enough cash to meet current needs.

 

S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.

Sources: Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch, djindexes.com, London Bullion Market Association.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.

 

The coronavirus effect. COVID-19 has been reshaping Americans' financial habits. During the second quarter, credit card debt and personal savings data showed, overall, we were spending less and saving more than ever before.

 

In 2019, when a pandemic was a planning and preparedness exercise for epidemiologists, healthcare professionals, and health officials, the debt Americans accrued on credit cards increased between 2.5 and 4.6 percent each quarter.

 

Since COVID-19 arrived on our shores and began to spread, credit card debt has fallen dramatically. From January through March, it was down 7.6 percent (the seasonally adjusted annual rate). In early July, the Federal Reserve reported the numbers through May:

 

April 2020: - 64.8 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

May 2020: - 28.6 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

 

Lower spending may have contributed to higher savings. The personal saving rate (PSR) in the United States is the percentage of income left after people spend money and pay taxes each month. It increased dramatically in 2020:

 

            January 2020: 7.9 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

            February 2020: 8.4 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

            March 2020: 12.6 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

            April 2020: 32.2 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

            May 2020: 23.2 percent (seasonally adj. annual rate)

 

Some believe higher rates of saving are the result of lockdowns and will reverse quickly as states reopen. An analyst cited by Jessica Dickler of CNBC explained, "In a month with large government stimulus payments to the majority of U.S. households and widespread economic shutdowns that largely curtailed discretionary spending, the boost to income and the plunge in spending produced an outsized savings rate."

 

The shift in percentages from April to May appear to support the hypothesis. We won't really know whether Americans will continue to charge less and save more until the pandemic ends.

 

 

"It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy."

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         --George Lorimer, Journalist

 

Best regards,