MacroScope

Looking at the commentary from bank economists on this morning’s “stronger-than-expected” employment report, you would think the country is on a clear path to recovery. Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank, was downright euphoric:

This is critical, this is the most important data that we have seen this cycle. This is going to get people’s attention. This confirms that most of the negativity we have seen in the market is derived from the market itself and not the data.

Never mind that nearly half of the 103,000 new jobs “created” in September were accounted for by the return of thousands of striking Verizon workers to their jobs. Brian Dolan, chief strategist at Forex.com, didn’t let that caveat tamp his enthusiasm:

It’s a breath of fresh air and should allow the risk recovery we’ve had this week to continue.

Now to put the gain, which left the jobless rate stuck above 9 percent for fifth straight month, in some perspective. Since the official start of the recovery more than two years ago, the economy has made up less than a quarter of the more than 8 million jobs lost during the recession. That leaves a jobs deficit of some 6 million jobs, and ignores the millions more Americans who have entered the labor force given normal population growth.

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher is not one to pull his punches. He was one of three dissenters on the Fed’s most recent move to ease policy, and has argued the move will not only be ineffective but also potentially harmful to jobs. Speaking with reporters after his refreshingly frank defense of his dissent this week, Fisher – an architect of the Fed’s new communications policy aimed at more transparency – suggested there are times when he would prefer to be a bit more demure.

Asked if the Federal Open Market Committee’s gloomy economic outlook in its post-meeting statement last week matched his own, he said: “I think the FOMC does its job to honestly state how it views things. We are in an age of enhanced transparency.”

But that’s not always a good thing, he suggested, especially when the market is not used to getting an unvarnished view. Warning that he was about to make a “bad joke” – and then proceeding with it – Fisher said:

Sure, many U.S. inflation indicators have been moving higher in recent months. But that’s because most of them are really a look into the rearview mirror, argue economists at JP Morgan. In a note entitled “The rise in U.S. inflation is yesterday’s headache,” they say the same pattern was observed in early 2008, just before a deepening financial crisis dragged prices lower across the world economy:

At first glance the rise in inflation looks anomalous against the backdrop of persistently disappointing U.S. and global growth and hints at an intractable stagflation problem. But it is very likely that the rise in both inflation and core inflation will prove temporary and soon recede. In this regard,the inflation performance in early 2008 provides a useful model. Then, as now, inflation rose while the economy was weakening. And then, as now, the rise in inflation mainly reflected the upward pressure on goods prices from much higher commodity prices and a weakening dollar.

That means the Fed, which has just announced a fresh effort to push down long-term borrowing costs, may have room to ease monetary policy further if it feels the need.

Mexico Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens spoke to Reuters Insider on the sidelines of this year’s IMF/G20 meetings. He said the peso, which like many other emerging market currencies has taken a drubbing with the dollar’s recent rally, is undervalued. But unlike in Brazil, where an even more volatile exchange rate has prompted the monetary authorities to step in, Carstens said Mexico does not see the need to intervene.

As long as the markets continue to work well, I think central bank intervention is not required. If we guide ourselves by fundamentals the peso should appreciate soon.

Asked about the path of monetary policy for Mexico, Carstens said he backs a “neutral” stance for now given all the uncertainty in the global economy. Until recently, analysts were betting the central bank would lower borrowing costs to offset the drag from a global economic slowdown. But the peso’s steep depreciation, with its potentially inflationary implications, has muddled the outlook for Mexican interest rates, currently at 4.5 percent. Mexico is struggling to recover from a deep recession in 2009, with growth seen below 4 percent this year, and is particularly vulnerable to lower U.S. demand.

Four leading Republicans wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before the Fed’s Sept. 20-21 policy meeting recommending the Fed stop taking steps to boost growth. Fed interventions to pull down the high unemployment rate may do more harm than good and risk inflation, the officials said.

The Fed to some extent brushed those objections aside, deciding at the end of the meeting that a deteriorating outlook warranted buying and selling $400 billion worth of Treasuries to shift its holdings to longer maturities. Doing so should push down longer interest rates and may promote mortgage refinancing, Fed officials hope.

While the Fed would likely argue that its action was not the same as expanding its balance sheet through outright bond buying – which many critics objected to – it was nevertheless taking an active step, and could draw criticism from Republican lawmakers and candidates for the presidency. How could Congress make life miserable for the Fed? Lawmakers of both parties have proposed measures that would diminish or alter the Fed’s role.

While financial markets are primarily focused on “Operation Twist,” the Fed’s return to buying mortgage-backed securities has helped that market. MBS have outperformed Treasuries and interest rate swaps since the FOMC announcement.

This has yet to translate into much of a drop in mortgage rates for consumers, however. And even if it does, many economists doubt lower mortgage rates can do much to boost home sales and refinancing, helping to put more cash in consumers’ pockets. Banks are reluctant to lend for a variety of reasons, while consumers are reluctant to borrow due to worries about their jobs and the poor outlook for the economy. Homeowners with underwater mortgages remain unable to refinance their loans — barring a sudden improvement in the market or some type of relief from Washington.

As of early Thursday, the current coupon 30-year MBS were 10 basis points tighter in spread versus Treasuries after a 15 basis points tightening on Wednesday, but the average 30-year mortgage rate is down only 3 basis points overnight to 4.10 percent (albeit a record low) according to Bankrate.com.

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” That insight of Milton Friedman’s underpins the general perception of a rising money supply as associated with a booming economy. So why, as Europe teeters and the United States struggles, have U.S. monetary aggregates like M1 and M2 been spiking sharply in the last two months? According to Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics, it is a knee-jerk reaction to fear, which has driven investors away from European securities and into dollar-denominated deposits:

The surge in M2 over the past couple of months is very similar to the one seen after the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago.  … The shift clearly reflects renewed concerns about the health of banks in light of their exposure to euro-zone sovereign debt. In particular, investors are withdrawing their money from accounts at foreign banks.

As the U.S. economic recovery stumbles, most observers Federal Reserve policy expect the central bank next week to announce an initiative to replace shorter-term securities on its balance sheet with longer-term ones in a bid to drive longer-term interest rates lower.

Fed watchers call the maneuver Operation Twist after a like-named Cold War-era initiative in which the Fed bought longer term securities with a similar objective.

A twist action could stimulate mortgage refinancing and push investors to invest in corporate bonds, which could spur business borrowing, or in equities, which might help stocks recover, the Fed believes. By adjusting the composition of its portfolio rather than launching an aggressive new round of bond buying, also known as quantitative easing, the Fed would be taking a relatively modest easing step, but be acting all the same.

For markets, it’s a fait accompli: the Federal Reserve, which meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, is expected to push for some variation on a 1961 policy, known as Operation Twist because it aims to push down long-term borrowing costs while nudging short-term rates higher. Primary dealer banks polled by Reuters two weeks ago, just after the Labor Department reported the U.S. job market had stagnated in August, saw an 80 percent chance that some of sort of twist-like measure would be put into place.

Still, there are a number of variants the Fed could employ:

Half Twist: The most modest, perhaps too weak given market fragility, would be to direct proceeds from existing bonds on the balance sheet into longer-dated Treasury securities.

Full Twist: A more aggressive approach would involve active sales of short-dated bills and longer bond buys, and attempt to flatten the yield curve to effectively force investors to take more risk by lending at longer maturities. A February paper from the San Francisco Fed argued that, unlike the conventional wisdom that the original Operation Twist was a failure, the measure actually drove down long term Treasury yields by what the study calls a “highly statistically significant” 0.15 percentage point.

Greece is in the danger zone. Even as the country’s finance minister sought to reassure his euro zone counterparts at a meeting in Poland, Greek credit default swaps were pricing in a more than 90 percent chance of default, according to Reuters calculations of Markit data. Economists in a Reuters poll see a 65 percent chance of that happening, probably within a year.

Such fears recently sent jitters across financial markets, prompting some words of comfort from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that they are determined to keep Greece in the euro zone. But speculation is growing that Greece will default, and that it will be a messy ordeal. Here are some of the potential dangers if it occurs:

* Greece may be seen as setting a precedent for Portugal and Ireland, analysts said. Yields on peripheral euro zone debt could surge rapidly, making funding costs increasingly unsustainable as yields on Italian and Spanish 10-year bonds surge back towards 7 percent. The ECB could have to intervene more aggressively in the secondary bond market to the detriment of its balance sheet.