Another big difference between now and March is the steepness of the yield curve. The 2 year note yield has been on a steep rise of late, up 140% since the beginning of September, with most of that coming in October. The 2 year rate roughly doubled in the early part of the year too but the absolute change was small because rates started so low. The recent change in the 2 year has been more rapid than the 10 and is being driven by expectations for Fed policy changes. The 10/2 curve was 1.58% at the end of March but just 1.18% today. The short term trend is still toward steeper but the climb has stalled a bit:

Unfortunately, that makes sense too since, as I discussed last week, we haven’t done anything to change the trajectory of either workforce or productivity growth. My long term expectation for growth hasn’t changed much since the first few months of COVID. We came into it with growth averaging roughly 2.2% over the previous decade. After adding a lot of debt to that economy during the pandemic my assumption is that, when things finally settle out from the virus and the response to it, economic growth will be lower. How much? I don’t know of any way to quantify that.

But that long term expectation is just that, long term. It doesn’t say anything about growth over the near term, the next 6 to 12 months. We’ll get a report on Q3 GDP next week and all indications are that it will be a pretty big fall off from the first half of the year. But anyone who’s been paying the slightest bit of attention knows that so it really won’t matter. Investors will be focused on the current quarter and the one after that. Will there be a reacceleration in growth as the delta variant fades? Will businesses be able to get goods for Christmas or will America get a lump of coal in its stocking? Or are we out of coal too? I don’t know but I do think we need to be careful about getting too negative about, at least, the immediate future. Inflation expectations can change rapidly while growth expectations take more time so TIPS and nominal yields are often on different songs, even if in the same hymnal.

Of course, those expectations could change dramatically if Q4 turns out to be a bust but it is, for now, a positive indication for future growth.

The Markit PMIs also offered some near term optimism as the overall measure rose to 57.3 from 55 in September. That’s the best in 3 months with a sharp rise in service sector activity and a 3rd consecutive month of slowing in manufacturing activity (which is still at a high level). New orders in services rose at the fastest pace in 3 months. Job creation was the highest since June although companies still report having a hard time finding workers. All of this is perfectly consistent with the expectations for a growth resurgence post delta. Will those expectations be met?

I don’t know obviously but if these expectations start to be met, we should see a response in the bond market with better balance between TIPS and nominal bonds.

Again, I don’t think we should put a lot of emphasis on these surveys. I’m always more interested in what people are doing rather than what they say they’re doing and especially what they say they intend to do. But these seem to be more significant changes than we’d normally see month to month.

We’re going through a bit of an inflation scare right now and we can see the changes in markets. They are fairly small changes though and they can, probably will, change again in coming weeks. Growth and inflation expectations are always changing as new information enters the market. Millions of investors speculate about how the future will look and their bets on that future move markets as new consensus expectations emerge.

The economic environment is unchanged.

The trend in the nominal 10 year rate is obviously up

Despite my comments above about the Philly Fed survey and the Markit PMIs (not shown here), the economic data wasn’t that encouraging last week.

The Housing Market Index rose in September with single family especially strong. But the news on the new home front otherwise was not that great with starts and permits both down. Existing home sales did have a big rise but that was probably driven by rising mortgage rates.

A lot of data releases next week with GDP the highlight for most observers. The more important items will be the CFNAI to get an idea of how much we’ve slowed overall, durable goods orders and especially core capital goods orders, personal income and consumption and consumer sentiment.

We were reminded last week that US markets are still under the spell of speculators when a SPAC announced a deal with an entity associated with Donald Trump. Digital World Acquisition Corp. rose from $10 to, at one point, over $170 in two days of trading last week before settling the week up a mere 9 fold to $94.20. SPACs are Special Purpose Acquisition Corps or more commonly blank check companies. The fact that these companies with no business plan beyond a vague notion to purchase an operating company are so popular, is an indication by itself, of the speculative nature of these markets. But when a blank check company with no business plan acquires a shell company that consists of a powerpoint presentation and the stock has to come down to be up 9 fold in a couple of days, well, I think we’ve entered something beyond speculation.

Back in the real world, stocks were up last week with the US continuing to outperform. Growth had a good week and the value/growth debate YTD now amounts to a draw. China rebounded last week as Evergrande made an interest payment and you may see a rebound in Chinese markets as people get comfortable with the heavier hand of the communist party. I’m going to have to miss that if it happens as I am decidedly not comfortable with China. There are other places in Asia that look a lot more attractive in my opinion, Japan prominent among them.

Real estate has recovered quickly and led last week but financials continue to perform well too. Healthcare had a good week after lagging recently.