The events of the past seven
days have altered the shape of the market and will impact the economy going
forward. The current financial crisis reflects the failure of firms to
deleverage in an acceptable period of time. The inability or unwillingness to
accept the terms of re-capitalization offered troubled institutions has set in
motion the financial train wreck of which we all bear witness. While growth
over the past year has exceeded the very low expectations set by the market,
the risk to economic output over the remainder of the year is to the
downside.
First, the reduction of
available credit to consumers and firms will impact overall economic
activity. This should be initially observed inside the housing sector. The
development community which, until recently took heart in the flattening in
the negative slope of housing starts and falling interest rates, will take it
on the chin once again as tight credit and lending standards impede the
building of homes and the purchase of an already elevated existing stock on
the market.
Second there are still
pervasive problems in the banking industry. For example, WaMu (not a holding
of the Merk Mutual funds) is currently trading just above $2.0 per share down
from it recent high of $38.32 in September of 2007 and remains under duress.
At the end of Q2'08 WaMu had just north of $150 billion in interest bearing
deposits, held $181.5 billion or 58% of its total assets in home lending and
wrote off $2.17 billion in non-performing loans, mostly attributed to
mortgage defaults, in the second quarter. Currently, the FDIC has $52.413bln
in its insurance fund balance and can tap a line of $30bln line of credit at
the U.S. Treasury should additional banks fail.
Second, the sharp decline in
the value of equities should provide a negative wealth effect on consumers.
Personal consumption which we already expect to post a negative print in
Q3'08 looks to now possibly contract at a rate of -1.0% during the quarter
with additional downside risk in the final quarter of the year.
The decline in the cost of oil
and gasoline will provide some savings to consumers and could possibly offset
the negative impact on consumer psychology. However, as the recent data
suggests even a decline of -4.2% in the cost of gasoline during the month of
August did not lead to increase in retail sales during a time when back to school
sales traditionally draw consumes into the malls. Given the storm clouds
gathering over the consumer we think that recent events should cast a greater
shadow over any increase in appetite for consumption.
External demand, which has
provided a major source of support for overall economic activity during the
now thirteen month financial crisis should see real declines on the back of
the global credit tightening that the market is in the process of absorbing.
While we are still only days into the recent evolution of the financial
crisis, we are observing some unwinding of positions in Emerging Markets and
risk aversion plays as capital flows into gold and Swiss Francs, two
traditional safe havens in times of crises.
Should credit conditions not
return to something approximating normal over the next few days our economic
outlook will be adjusted accordingly. At this time, the damage wrought by the
latest seizing up in the credit markets has not become an economic event.
However, we have inched closer to the outcome and we continue to believe that
risk is to the downside for the U.S. economic outlook.
