Wcw

Wednesday, July 1. 2009

FINRA does something useful

AIG 4.95% 3/20/12, CUSIP 02687QBL1, 3-Month Price Chart

AIG 4.95% 3/20/12, CUSIP 02687QBL1, 6-Month Price Chart

AIG 4.95% 3/20/12, CUSIP 02687QBL1, 1-Year Price Chart

AIG 4.95% 3/20/12, CUSIP 02687QBL1, 3- 6- and 12-Month Charts

So, you can't afford a Bloomberg and you want to check out how much your broker's bond quote screws you?

FINRA, rather improbably, has your back, at least a little bit.

Welcome to the Bond Section of the Market Data Center. This section includes general bond market information such as news, benchmark yields, and corporate bond market activity and performance information, descriptive data on U.S. Treasury, Agency, Corporate and Municipal Bonds, Credit Rating Information from major rating agencies, and price information with real-time transaction prices for Corporate Bonds (TRACE), Municipal Bonds (MSRB) and end of day prices for U.S. Treasury Bonds.

FINRA - Investor Information - Market Data - Bonds

'Tain't perfect, but it's free.

Close second: EMMA, for munis. Gold.

Posted by Wcw in Investing at 05:08 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

Monday, June 15. 2009

Housing stock value

Household real estate assets, %GDP and Real $ per Unit, 1952-2009

Where I blithely muttered earlier about a return to [the] 1980s peak values for houses in terms of GDP, commenters both at Felix's Reuters House of Fun and elsewhere have noted that houses are, you know, bigger than they used to be. Better, even. To the extent homes nationally are bigger and better than they were in 1989, they should be worth more. The 1989 housing %GDP peak was 116%. We're at 127% now. Maybe that's fair value.

The million-dollar REO around the corner from me was built in the 1950s, mind you. But maybe.

I did want to nail down another moving part I had ignored: total units. Have we just built up in a way the 1950s never knew? I deflated the flow-of-funds assets data by CPI ex-shelter and divided by total units, and came up with a surprisingly tight fit to my naive %GDP chart. It would seem recent price movements swamp everything else. Intriguingly, this was not true of the 1989 peak: that one is much moderated in unit terms. Per unit, we are 40% above 1989 in real dollars per unit, which makes me wonder a little.

If that REO next door would only drop those 40% tomorrow, I'd be in the market.

Posted by Wcw in Investing at 05:43 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Friday, June 12. 2009

Flow of funds: owners equity update

Owners equity in household real estate, %GDP, 1952-2009

Yesterday's Flow of Funds gives us the update above. Equity in real estate continues to vaporize. And the scary thing is, household real estate isn't even cheap yet. On a historical relative-to-GDP basis, it remains at elevated levels never seen before the current bubble.

Household real estate assets, %GDP, 1952-2009

I suppose the good news is, we only have to drop ten or twenty percent more to return to 1980s peak values for houses. The bad news, alas, is what that will do to owners equity and what the wealth effect means for future consumption.

Green shoots are nice to see, but the outlook for US households isn't pretty.

Posted by Wcw in Investing at 15:21 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (3)

Shoots?

Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index 2007-2009

We construct the ADS Index using the latest data available as of June 11, 2009. The bold vertical lines provide information as to which indicators are available for which dates. For dates to the left of the left line, the ADS index is based on observed data for all six underlying indicators. For dates between the left and right lines, the ADS index is based on at least two monthly indicators (typically employment and industrial production) and initial jobless claims. For dates to the right of the right line, the ADS index is based on initial jobless claims and possibly one monthly indicator.

Plot of ADS Business Conditions Index in the Most Recent Two Years [PDF]
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 11. June 2009

Yes, yes, it's only the second derivative that's positive, but c'mon, it's something. You'll need some cheering up after I post the updated housing charts from the Flow of Funds.

Full disclosure: if pinned down and forced to make a prediction, I am in the L-bottom camp. Worth remembering, though, that my last "muddle through" hope was pretty firmly dashed by March 2008.

Posted by Wcw in Investing at 04:57 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Wednesday, June 10. 2009

Pure ugliness

Aggregate Weekly Hours: Private Industries per Civilan, Noninstitutional Population, 1964-2009

During the current recession, both the inflow and outflow rates have shifted significantly, with high levels of firing and low levels of hiring, similar to what was observed in the 1970s and 1980s. We are currently at a historically low outflow rate, meaning that the unemployed find it very difficult to get work and average unemployment spells are getting much longer. At the same time, the recent increase in the inflow rate is comparable to what was observed in the 1970s and 1980s. These factors combined are creating especially weak labor market conditions.

Daly, Hobijn and Kwok, Jobless Recovery Redux?
FRBSF Economic Letter 2009-18, 5. June, 2009

Like James Hamilton, I have some hopes that moderating initial claims numbers aren't just noise. So when everyone and his mother began noting Jeff Frankels solid point about aggregate hours, I thought I'd take a quick stab.

There are roughly fifty moving parts missing from a real analysis here (demography, female labor-force participation, changing government share of the economy, etc etc). No matter how you slice them, these data are ugly. We first cracked the current level of aggregate hours per population in 1964.

1964, when the participation rate was seven points lower.

Pure ugliness.

Full disclosure: my bonus this year was de minimis. Plus keeping my job. I was happy.

Posted by Wcw in Investing at 05:12 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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