Is it a boon or a bane? With a decade of US bond yields lower than 3-month T-bill rates occurring for the first time in more than ten years, fears of recession are spinning.
In retrospect, a yield curve that’s inverted practically predicted recessions in the United States – this happens when yields that are longer-dated plunges below shorter ones. Because of this trend, several investors are putting cash wagers the Fed is preparing for rate cuts.
Pointing to a world economy that is moving along at a steady pace, dovish central banks, and company income that is currently increasing, in spite of being slow – there are still many people who scoff. Although the Treasury yields fall short of 30 basis points this quarter, stock prices soared up to more than 10 percent. Recession nonbelievers may also take into account that U.S. equity interests are not a long way from a record-breaking score and credit spreads from December losses are retraced.
In addition, while recession talks in the past have centered on the 2-year/10-year U.S. curve inversion, that has not reacted yet. Federal lawmakers, like voting member John Williams, state that they’re not bothered by recession this year or the coming year. Other policymakers such as James Bullard looks like he upholds the argument “this time is different,” hinting that the curve’s predictive control is already exhausted.
Political leaders from around the globe have started paying attention. ECB gave a hint about continued delays in rate cuts and at promoting tiered interest rates in an effort to save banks; central banks from New Zealand to Canada also gave cues about interest rate reduction ahead.
Meanwhile, job growth in the US manufacturing sector was at its most vulnerable in February ever since the start of summer in 2017 but still achieved monthly earnings to 19, which is by far the longest in 25 years. As one would expect, Friday’s payroll report for March makes 20 in a row – economists surveyed by Reuter’s forecasts an increase of 10,000 – which would earn the distinction of being the longest uninterrupted production run of manufacturing employment growth in a generation, equaling that from January 1983 to August 1984.
While comparatively similar in length, the current status of manufacturing renaissance pales in comparison when it comes to the number of jobs created. In the past, 1.34 million workers have been deployed to U.S. factories, which is three times more than the 417,000 new jobs from August 2017 when the current trend began.
As an idea for the jobs data, review the ISM manufacturing index for Monday. Its employment factor correlates closely with the manufacturing payrolls of the Labor Department. February reading of 52.3 is considered the weakest factory employment in two years. If it ever drops to 50, the degree separating contraction to expansion in the ISM series may imply an end to the long run of manufacturing employment. In September 2016, factories in the U.S. slashed 3,000 jobs, the last in which ISM had a sub-50 print.
