. . Laird Research - Economics May 11, 2015 Where we are now ........................ 1 Indicators for US Economy ................... 2 Global Financial Markets .................... 3 US Key Interest Rates ...................... 8 US Inflation ............................. 9 QE Taper Tracker ......................... 10 Exchange Rates .......................... 11 US Banking Indicators ...................... 12 US Employment Indicators ................... 13 US Business Activity Indicators ................ 15 US Consumption Indicators .................. 16 US Housing ............................. 17 Global Housing .......................... 19 Global Business Indicators ................... 21 Canadian Indicators ....................... 24 European Indicators ....................... 26 Chinese Indicators ........................ 28 Global Climate Change ..................... 29 Where we are now Welcome to the Laird Report. We present a selection economic data from around the world to help figure where we are today. The PMI ratings for much of the planet shows a bit of a wobble in the past month. From the view here in Canada, it does feel like the litany of shakiness in the world has increased a bit. But that’s probably because oil prices are still below $100. (note to self: don’t hold breath) However, it seems like the long awaited NAIRU may finally have been crossed in the US. The NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate Of Unemployment) is a guess about how low the unemployment rate gets before demand for workers results in wage inflation. Because wages are a major component of corporate expenses, the assumption is that workers making more dollars per hour translates into inflation at some point. Inflation in the US has been stubbornly low - though if you lived in the Eurozone, it would seem positively scorching. Part of the rea- son the fed has been waiting for so long to raise rates is because they feel there is not enough inflation in the system - and they also want to see employment rates improve before raising rates. Thus far, un- employment in the US has dropped past the target (6.5% - remember how long ago that was?) but inflation hasn’t budged so therefore they haven’t crossed the NAIRU line. All the commentary seems to be focused on wage changes - and there’s anecdotal evidence of employers paying more money to get em- ployees (hello Walmart), but we still aren’t seeing inflation. With corporate profit levels (% of revenue) at all time highs, per- haps employee costs in the US aren’t as important as yesteryear? Formatting Notes The grey bars on the various charts are OECD recession indicators for the respective countries. In many cases, the last available value is listed, along with the median value (measured from as much of the data series as is available). Subscription Info For a FREE subscription to this monthly re- port, please visit sign up at our website: www.lairdresearch.com Laird Research, May 11, 2015
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....Laird Research - Economics
May 11, 2015
Where we are now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Welcome to the Laird Report. We present a selection economic datafrom around the world to help figure where we are today.
The PMI ratings for much of the planet shows a bit of a wobble inthe past month. From the view here in Canada, it does feel like thelitany of shakiness in the world has increased a bit. But that’s probablybecause oil prices are still below $100. (note to self: don’t hold breath)
However, it seems like the long awaited NAIRU may finally havebeen crossed in the US. The NAIRU (Non-Accelerating Inflation RateOf Unemployment) is a guess about how low the unemployment rategets before demand for workers results in wage inflation. Because wagesare a major component of corporate expenses, the assumption is thatworkers making more dollars per hour translates into inflation at somepoint.
Inflation in the US has been stubbornly low - though if you livedin the Eurozone, it would seem positively scorching. Part of the rea-son the fed has been waiting for so long to raise rates is because theyfeel there is not enough inflation in the system - and they also want
to see employment rates improve before raising rates. Thus far, un-employment in the US has dropped past the target (6.5% - rememberhow long ago that was?) but inflation hasn’t budged so therefore theyhaven’t crossed the NAIRU line.
All the commentary seems to be focused on wage changes - andthere’s anecdotal evidence of employers paying more money to get em-ployees (hello Walmart), but we still aren’t seeing inflation.
With corporate profit levels (% of revenue) at all time highs, per-haps employee costs in the US aren’t as important as yesteryear?
Formatting Notes The grey bars on the various charts are OECDrecession indicators for the respective countries. In many cases, the lastavailable value is listed, along with the median value (measured fromas much of the data series as is available).
Subscription Info For a FREE subscription to this monthly re-port, please visit sign up at our website: www.lairdresearch.com
Leading indicators are indicators that usually change before theeconomy as a whole changes. They are useful as short-term predictorsof the economy. Our list includes the Philly Fed’s Leading Index whichsummarizes multiple indicators; initial jobless claims and hours worked(both decrease quickly when demand for employee services drops and
vice versa); purchasing manager indicies; new order and housing per-mit indicies; delivery timings (longer timings imply more demand inthe system) and consumer sentiment (how consumers are feeling abouttheir own financial situation and the economy in general). Red dotsare points where a new trend has started.
North AmericaUSA S&P 500 May 08 2,116.1 0.4% s 1.6% s 3.4% s 12.8% s 1.00 0.72USA NASDAQ Composite May 08 5,003.5 -0.0% t 1.1% s 5.9% s 23.5% s 0.94 0.65USA Wilshire 5000 Total Market May 08 22,319.3 0.3% s 1.0% s 3.3% s 12.6% s 1.00 0.74Canada S&P TSX May 08 15,170.0 -1.1% t -0.3% t 0.5% s 4.3% s 0.72 1.00Europe and RussiaFrance CAC 40 May 08 5,090.4 0.2% s -0.9% t 9.4% s 12.9% s 0.53 0.51Germany DAX May 08 11,709.7 0.8% s -2.7% t 9.8% s 21.9% s 0.46 0.38United Kingdom FTSE May 08 7,046.8 0.9% s 1.6% s 3.1% s 3.0% s 0.57 0.57Russia Market Vectors Russia ETF May 08 20.2 1.9% s 6.1% s 23.3% s -11.7% t 0.40 0.46AsiaTaiwan TSEC weighted index May 08 9,692.0 -1.3% t 1.3% s 2.9% s 8.5% s 0.22 0.20China Shanghai Composite Index May 05 4,298.7 -4.0% t 8.5% s 37.1% s 112.0% s 0.05 -0.05Japan NIKKEI 225 May 08 19,379.2 -0.8% t -2.1% t 9.4% s 36.8% s 0.18 0.16Hong Kong Hang Seng May 08 27,577.3 -2.0% t 5.1% s 12.5% s 26.3% s 0.18 0.10Korea Kospi May 08 2,085.5 -2.0% t 1.3% s 7.1% s 6.9% s -0.03 0.07South Asia and AustrailiaIndia Bombay Stock Exchange May 08 27,105.4 0.3% s -5.6% t -4.0% t 21.3% s 0.24 0.21Indonesia Jakarta May 08 5,182.2 0.8% s -5.5% t -3.1% t 6.6% s 0.09 0.10Malaysia FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI May 08 1,807.7 -0.6% t -2.3% t -0.2% t -3.0% t 0.23 0.22Australia All Ordinaries May 08 5,635.4 -2.8% t -4.9% t -2.3% t 3.3% s 0.14 0.18New Zealand NZX 50 Index Gross May 08 5,735.4 -1.1% t -2.1% t -0.6% t 11.1% s -0.16 -0.11South AmericaBrasil IBOVESPA May 08 57,149.0 1.6% s 6.5% s 15.7% s 7.0% s 0.47 0.50Argentina MERVAL Buenos Aires May 08 12,205.1 1.3% s 8.2% s 33.8% s 79.1% s 0.44 0.57Mexico Bolsa index May 08 45,125.9 1.2% s 0.3% s 5.4% s 8.3% s 0.64 0.52MENA and AfricaEgypt Market Vectors Egypt ETF May 08 54.5 1.7% s -0.9% t -11.4% t -16.9% t 0.18 0.06(Gulf States) Market Vectors Gulf States ETF May 08 28.5 -0.0% t 4.3% s 3.0% s -12.3% t 0.51 0.39South Africa iShares MSCI South Africa Index May 08 69.0 -2.2% t -1.7% t -0.1% t 2.7% s 0.66 0.54(Africa) Market Vectors Africa ETF May 08 26.8 -1.1% t 3.6% s 3.8% s -16.5% t 0.46 0.41CommoditiesUSD Spot Oil West Texas Int. May 04 $58.9 6.0% s 13.1% s 21.6% s -40.9% t 0.18 0.37USD Gold LME Spot May 08 $1,185.2 0.5% s -2.1% t -4.6% t -8.2% t -0.08 -0.07
Note: Correlations are based on daily arithmetic returns for the most recent 100 trading days.
www.lairdresearch.com May 11, 2015 Page 3
S&P 500 Composite Index
The S&P 500 Composite Index is widely regarded as the best singlegauge of the large cap U.S. equities market. A key figure is the valua-tion level of the S&P500 as measured by the Price/Earnings ratio. Wepresent two versions: (1) a 12-month trailing earnings version which
reflects current earnings but is skewed by short term variances and (2)a cyclically adjusted version which looks at the inflation adjusted earn-ings over a 10 year period (i.e. at least one business cycle). Forecastedearnings numbers are estimates provided by S&P.
12−month P/E ( median = 17.4, May = 21.1)10−year CAPE ( median = 19.5, May = 26.1)
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S&P 500 Composite Distributions
This is a view of the price performance of the S&P 500 index com-panies. The area of each box is proportional to the company’s marketcap, while the colour is determined by the percentage change in price
over the past month. In addition, companies are sorted according totheir industry group.
Average Median Median MedianSector Change P/Sales P/Book P/EMaterials 5.8% s 1.7 4.3 26.1Energy 5.7% s 1.7 1.7 14.2Information Technology 4.5% s 3.4 4.4 21.6Telecommunications Services 3.3% s 1.3 2.0 30.5Financials 2.8% s 3.0 1.5 18.9
Average Median Median MedianSector Change P/Sales P/Book P/EHealth Care 2.5% s 3.4 4.3 25.6Industrials 2.3% s 1.6 3.8 19.5Consumer Discretionary 2.2% s 1.7 4.3 20.9Consumer Staples 0.7% s 2.3 6.2 25.4Utilities -0.9% t 1.5 1.6 17.6
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US Equity Valuations
A key valuation metric is Tobin’s q: the ratio between the marketvalue of the entire US stock market versus US net assets at replacementcost (ie. what you pay versus what you get). Warren Buffet famouslyfollows stock market value as a percentage of GNP, which is highly(93%) correlated to Tobin’s q.
We can also take the reverse approach: assume the market hasvaluations correct, we can determine the required returns of future es-
timated earnings. These are quoted for both debt (using BAA ratedsecurities as a proxy) and equity premiums above the risk free rate (10year US Treasuries). These figures are alternate approaches to under-standing the current market sentiment - higher premiums indicate ademand for greater returns for the same price and show the level ofrisk-aversion in the market.
Tobin's q (Market Equity / Market Net Worth) and S&P500 Price/Sales
Fund flows describe the net investments in equity and bond mutualfunds in the US market, as described in ICI’s “Trends in Mutual FundInvesting” report. Note however that this is only part of the story as
it does not include ETF fund flows - part of the changes are investorsentering or leaving the market, and part is investors shifting to ETF’sfrom mutual funds.
Interest rates are often leading indicators of stress in the financialsystem. The yield curve show the time structure of interest rates ongovernment bonds - Usually the longer the time the loan is outstanding,the higher the rate charged. However if a recession is expected, thenthe fed cuts rates and this relationship is inverted - leading to negativespreads where short term rates are higher than long term rates.
Almost every recession in the past century has been preceeded by an
inversion - though not every inversion preceeds a recession (just mostof the time).
For corporate bonds, the key issue is the spread between bond rates(i.e. AAA vs BAA bonds) or between government loans (LIBOR vsFedfunds - the infamous “TED Spread”). Here a spike correlates to anaversion to risk, which is an indication that something bad is happen-ing.
US Treasury Yield Curves
For
war
d In
stan
tane
ous
Rat
es (
%)
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5May 7, 2015 (Today)Apr 7, 2015 (1 mo ago)Feb 9, 2015 (3 mo ago)07 May 2014 (1 yr ago)
Generally, the US Fed tries to anchor long run inflation expectationsto approximately 2%. Inflation can be measured with the ConsumerPrice Index (CPI) or the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE)index.
In both cases, it makes sense to exclude items that vary quickly likeFood and Energy to get a clearer picture of inflation (usually called
Core Inflation). The Fed seems to think PCI more accurately reflectsthe entire basket of goods and services that households purchase.
Finally, we can make a reasonable estimate of future inflation ex-pectations by comparing real return and normal bonds to construct animputed forward inflation expectation. The 5y5y chart shows expected5 year inflation rates at a point 5 years in the future. Neat trick that.
The US has been using the program of Quantitative Easing to pro-vide monetary stimulous to its economy. The Fed has engaged in aseries of programs (QE1, QE2 & QE3) designed to drive down longterm rates and improve liquidity though purchases of treasuries, mor-gage backed securites and other debt from banks.
The higher demand for long maturity securities would drive up theirprice, but as these securities have a fixed coupon, their yield would bedecreased (yield ≈ coupon / price) thus driving down long term rates.
In 2011-2012, “Operation Twist” attempted to reduce rates withoutincreasing liquidity. They went back to QE in 2013.
The Fed chairman suggested in June 2013 the economy was recover-ing enough that they could start slowing down purchases (“tapering”).The Fed backed off after a brief market panic. The Fed announced inDec 2013 that it was starting the taper, a decision partly driven byseeing key targets of inflation around 2% and unemployment being lessthan 6.5%. In Oct 2014, they announced the end of purchases.
QE Asset Purchases to Date (Treasury & Mortgage Backed Securities)
Trill
ions
0.00.51.01.52.02.5
0.00.51.01.52.02.5
QE1 QE2 Operation Twist QE3 TaperTreasuries
Mortgage Backed Securities
Total Monthly Asset Purchases (Treasury + Mortgage Backed Securities)
Bill
ions
−100−50
050
100150200
−100−50050100150200
Month to date May 06: $0.2
Inflation and Unemployment − Relative to Targets
Per
cent
02468
10
0246810
Target Unemployment 6.5%Target Inflation 2%
U.S. 10 Year and 3 Month Treasury Constant Maturity Yields
Per
cent
012345
012345
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Short Term Rates:Once at zero, Fed moved to QE
Long Term Rates:Moving up in anticipation of Taper?
The banking and finance industry is a key indicator of the healthof the US economy. It provides crucial liquidity to the economy in theform of credit, and the breakdown of that system is one of the exac-erbating factors of the 2008 recession. Key figures to track are the
Net Interest Margins which determine profitability (ie. the differencebetween what a bank pays to depositors versus what the bank is paidby creditors), along with levels of non-performing loans (i.e. loan lossreserves and actual deliquency rates).
Unemployment rates are considered the “single best indicator ofcurrent labour conditions” by the Fed. The pace of payroll growth ishighly correlated with a number of economic indicators.Payroll changesare another way to track the change in unemployment rate.
Unemployment only captures the percentage of people who are inthe labour market who don’t currently have a job - another measure
is what percentage of the whole population wants a job (employed ornot) - this is the Participation Rate.
The Beveridge Curve measures labour market efficiency by lookingat the relationship between job openings and the unemployment rate.The curve slopes downward reflecting that higher rates of unemploy-ment occur coincidentally with lower levels of job vacancies.
There are a number of other ways to measure the health of employ-ment. The U6 Rate includes people who are part time that want afull-time job - they are employed but under-utilitized. Temporary helpdemand is another indicator of labour market tightness or slack.
The large chart shows changes in private industry employment lev-els over the past year, versus how well those job segments typically pay.Lots of hiring in low paying jobs at the expense of higher paying jobsis generally bad, though perhaps not unsurprising in a recovery.
Housing construction is only about 5-8% of the US economy, how-ever a house is typically the largest asset owned by a household. Sincepersonal consumption is about 70% of the US economy and house val-ues directly impact household wealth, housing is an important indicatorin the health of the overall economy. In particular, housing investment
was an important driver of the economy getting out of the last fewrecessions (though not this one so far). Here we track housing pricesand especially indicators which show the current state of the housingmarket.
15 20 25 30 35
150
200
250
300
Personal Income vs. Housing Prices (Inflation adjusted values)
New
Hom
e P
rice
(000
's)
Disposable Income Per Capita (000's)
Mar 2015
r2 : 89.4%Range: Jan 1959 − Mar 2015Blue dots > +5% change in next yearRed dots < −5% change in next year
The Federal Housing Finance Agency provides a quarterly surveyon house prices, based on sales prices and appraisal data. This gener-ates a housing index for 355 municipal areas in the US from 1979 topresent. We have provided an alternative view of this data looking atthe change in prices from the peak in the 2007 time frame.
The goal is to provide a sense of where the housing markets are
weak versus strong.The colours represent gain or losses since the startof the housing crisis (defined as the maximum price between 2007-2009for each city). The circled dots are the cities in the survey, while thebackground colours are interpolated from these points using a loesssmoother.
Change from 2007 Peak − Q4 2014
−50%
−40%
−30%
−20%
−10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Today's Home Prices
Percentage Change from 2007−2009 Peak
Fre
quen
cy
−75% −50% −25% 0% 25% 50% 75%
Year over Year Change − Q4 2014
−10%
−8%
−6%
−4%
−2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
YoY Change in this quarter
YoY Percent Change
Fre
quen
cy
−15% −10% −5% 0% 5% 10% 15%
www.lairdresearch.com May 11, 2015 Page 18
Global Housing
The Bank for International Settlements has begun collecting globalhousing indicies, which are useful for showing what has been happeningwith global house prices. Note that these are not all the same data set -
each country measures housing prices in slightly different ways, so theyare only broadly comparable. Black lines are the data series, blue barson the right axis show the year over year percent change.
Brazil − Metro All Dwellings
Q1
2011
= 1
00
6080
100
140 Dec 2014: 147.42
Chile − All Dwellings
Dec 2013: 127.12
Peru (Lima) − All Dwellings
Jun 2014: 185.73
−40
020
40
Mexico − All Dwellings
Q1
2011
= 1
00
6080
100
140 Dec 2014: 118.60
China (Beijing) − All Dwellings
Jan 2015: 119.03
Hong Kong − Residential Prices
Feb 2015: 163.06
−40
020
40
Indonesia − Major Cities housing
Q1
2011
= 1
00
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
6080
100
140 Dec 2014: 130.00
India − Major Cities housing
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
Sep 2014: 177.58
Singapore − All Dwellings
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
Sep 2014: 104.42
−40
020
40
www.lairdresearch.com May 11, 2015 Page 19
Philippines (Manila) − FlatsQ
1 20
11 =
100
6080
120
Dec 2014: 139.96
Japan − All Dwellings
Dec 2013: 98.77
Australia − All Dwellings
Dec 2014: 117.14
−40
020
40
New Zealand − All Dwellings Big Cities
Q1
2011
= 1
00
6080
120
Sep 2014: 129.45
Turkey − All Dwellings
Jan 2015: 165.11
South Africa − Residential
Mar 2015: 110.89
−40
020
40
Israel − All Dwellings
Q1
2011
= 1
00
6080
120
Dec 2014: 125.25
Korea − All Dwellings
Feb 2015: 109.34
Russia − All Dwellings (Urban)
Dec 2014: 125.83
−40
020
40
Euro zone − All Dwellings
Q1
2011
= 1
00
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
6080
120
Dec 2014: 97.01
Canada − New Houses
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
Feb 2015: 107.87
US − New Single Family Houses
03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
Dec 2014: 124.44
−40
020
40
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Global Business Indicators
Global Manufacturing PMI Reports
The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an indicator reflectingpurchasing managers’ acquisition of goods and services. An index read-ing of 50.0 means that business conditions are unchanged, a numberover 50.0 indicates an improvement while anything below 50.0 suggests
a decline. The further away from 50.0 the index is, the stronger thechange over the month. The chart at the bottom shows a moving av-erage of a number of PMI’s, along with standard deviation bands toshow a global average.
Purchase Managers Index (Manufacturing) − China, Japan, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Australia
04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
3040
5060
70
3040
5060
70
Business Conditions Contracting
Business Conditions Expanding
www.lairdresearch.com May 11, 2015 Page 21
Global Manufacturing PMI Chart
This is an alternate view of the global PMI reports. Here, we lookat all the various PMI data series in a single chart and watch theirevolution over time.
Red numbers indicate contraction (as estimated by PMI) whilegreen numbers indicate expansion.
The OECD calculates import and export values for member coun-tries. Figures are seasonally adjusted and measured in billions of USdollars. Red lines indicate exports, while blue lines indicate imports.Green lines indicate the zero level.
The top part of the graph shows the changes in exports and importson a year-over-year basis, while the bottom part shows the differencebetween exports and imports for that given month (i.e. the trade bal-ance)
Series Dates Apr 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Mar 2015 Apr 2015 Apr 2015� France -14.0 t 10.6 u 0.51 t 104.5 t 109.5 s 0.0 s -16.8 s 48.0 t� Germany 0.8 s 4.7 u 0.23 t NA 113.7 t 0.1 s -7.3 t 52.1 t� United Kingdom -6.7 t 5.5 u 1.59 u 112.0 t NA 0.0 u 5.5 s 51.9 t� Italy -0.9 s 13.0 s 1.29 t 99.1 t NA 0.0 t -10.6 t 53.8 s� Greece -7.2 t 25.4 t 10.52 s NA NA -1.9 u -29.2 t 46.5 t� Spain 3.3 t 23.0 t 1.23 t NA NA -0.8 s -2.9 s 54.2 t� Eurozone (EU28) -2.6 t 9.8 u 1.26 t 105.2 t 108.9 u -0.5 t -10.0 s NA
Tracking the Chinese economy is a tricky. As reported in the Fi-nancial Times, Premier Li Keqiang confided to US officials in 2007 thatgross domestic product was “man made” and “for reference only”. In-stead, he suggested that it was much more useful to focus on three alter-native indicators: electricity consumption, rail cargo volumes and bank
lending (still tracking down that last one). We also include the PMI- which is an official version put out by the Chinese government anddiffers slightly from an HSBC version. Finally we include the ShanghaiComposite Index as a measure of stock performance.
Temperature and precipitation data are taken from the US NationalClimatic Data Center and presented as the average monthly anomalyfrom the previous 6 months. Anomalies are defined as the difference
from the average value over the period from 1961-1990 for precipitationand 1971-2000 for temperature.
Average Temperature Anomalies from Oct 2014 - Mar 2015
<−4.0 −3.0 −2.0 −1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 >4.0Anomalies in Celcius WarmerCooler Anomalies in Celcius
−4 −2 0 2 4
Average 6 month Precipitation Anomalies from Oct 2014 - Mar 2015
<−40.0 −30.0 −20.0 −10.0 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 >40.0Anomalies in millimeters WetterDrier Anomalies in millimeters