Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

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• Wal-Mart Shares Plunge 10 Percent; Retail Price Wars On the Way? Capital Investment Financial Engineering
• Rate Hike Odds For March 2016, Fall Below 50%; GDP Forecast Slips to 0.9%
• Business Sales Fall Sizable 0.6%; Inventories Weak with Last Month Revised Lower
• Autos and Restaurants Positive in Overall Weak Retail Sales Report; Last Month's Sales Revised Lower

Wal-Mart Shares Plunge 10 Percent; Retail Price Wars On the Way? Capital Investment Financial Engineering Posted: 14 Oct 2015 10:23 PM PDT Wal-Mart Shares plunged 10% Wednesday on profit warnings, the biggest one day decline in 25 years. The company blamed higher wages, e-commerce competition, and lower prices. Wal-Mart Chief Executive Doug McMillon said a $1.5 billion investment in wages and training, including raising the minimum store wage to $10 an hour from $9, were needed to improve customer service and would account for three-quarters of the expected 6 percent to 12 percent drop in earnings per share next year. Wal-Mart also announced a $20 billion share buyback but the drop in its share price wiped out close to the same amount in market value, and the 10 percent drop was the worst one-day percentage performance since January 1988. The world's largest retailer by revenue said it would invest several billion dollars to lower prices over the next three years. That sparked worries of a price war, and shares of rivals including Target and Home Depot also fell. The company is building out a network of warehouses to handle e-commerce, a costly move Wal-Mart sees as essential to stopping Amazon and other rivals from stealing its best customers. At the same time Wal-Mart projected slower growth in new stores, with 85-95 of the smaller Neighborhood Markets format planned for the fiscal year ending in January 2017, down from 160-170 planned for the current fiscal year. Supercenter openings would slow to 50-60 in fiscal 2017 from 60-70 this year. Price competition was one reason for the slower growth. Foran said that Wal-Mart could not compete with local grocers in some markets, a factor that has played into its scaled back expansion plans for smaller stores. Capital Investment Financial Engineering In a press release Wal-Mart announced "Capital investments will be approximately $11.0 billion for fiscal year 2017 and will remain flat in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. This is below the revised fiscal year 2016 estimate of approximately $12.4 billion, primarily due to a moderation of physical store expansion." Wolf Richter took Wal-Mart to task for that statement in his appraisal The Chilling Thing Wal-Mart Said about Financial Engineering. Wal-Mart will goose "capital investments" by $11 billion in Fiscal 2017, on top of the $16.4 billion it's spending on "capital investments" in fiscal 2016. This will maul earnings per share. In 2017, they're expected to drop 6% to 12%, when the analyst community had forecast an increase of 4%. But 2019 is back in the rosy scenario of earnings growth. These capital investments aren't computers, buildings, or new shelves. They're largely "investments in wages and training," which isn't a capital investment at all, but an ordinary expense. "Seventy-five percent of next year's investment will be related to people," CEO Doug McMillon clarified. That's why they'll hit earnings right away. A true capital investment would be an asset that is depreciated over time, with little earnings impact upfront. Then there was the announcement of a $20-billion share buyback program. Share buybacks, usually funded with borrowed money, have been among the most powerful forces behind the multi-year stock market rally. It has been the most successful method of financial engineering. It worked practically every time. It didn't matter that revenues and earnings were going to heck as long as the share buybacks were big enough. If that scheme has lost its appeal, and if Wal-Mart is a harbinger of how financial engineering fails to boost share prices of revenue-and-earnings challenged companies – which includes much of the S&P 500 – then more stocks, one after the other or perhaps together, will fall off their precariously swaying perch. In this era, once financial engineering fails to prop up stock prices, all bets are off. Retail Price Wars On the Way? It appears so, as Wal-Mart clearly intends to go head to head with Amazon. That's good for consumers of course, but the Fed will not see it that way. Consumers actually need price relief given rents are soaring out of sight and are seriously under-counted in the CPI. For details on rents, please see Hooray! Huge Rent Hikes Coming; How Will It Affect Price Inflation? Weakening Economy Regardless of how one views inflation, this economy is getting weaker and weaker. Following two weak economic reports on Tuesday, the first on retail sales, the second on business sales, Rate Hike Odds for March 2016, Fell Below 50% as GDP Forecast Slipped to 0.9%. Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Rate Hike Odds For March 2016, Fall Below 50%; GDP Forecast Slips to 0.9% Posted: 14 Oct 2015 09:24 AM PDT 3rd Quarter GDP Forecast Slips to 0.9% Following today's retail and business sales reports, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Forecast for third quarter GDP slipped 0.1 percentage points to 0.9%. Evolution of Rate Hike Odds I don't think the Fed will hike this year and neither does the market. In fact, the market now thinks the Fed will not hike in March. The above chart created with numbers from CME FedWatch. Hike adds for March are now down to 47.6%. In fact, going all the way out to July 2016, the Fed Fund Future sits at 99.645 implying an interest rate of  0.355%. Related Reports Retail Sales: Autos and Restaurants Positive in Overall Weak Retail Sales Report; Last Month's Sales Revised Lower   Business Inventories and Sales: Business Sales Fall Sizable 0.6%; Inventories Weak with Last Month Revised Lower Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Business Sales Fall Sizable 0.6%; Inventories Weak with Last Month Revised Lower Posted: 14 Oct 2015 08:43 AM PDT As a follow-up to today's weak retail sales report (see Autos and Restaurants Positive in Overall Weak Retail Sales Report; Last Month's Sales Revised Lower), today's business inventory and sales report is downright anemic, also with negative revisions. Bloomberg Econoday offers these comments on business inventories. There's evidence of economic weakness coming from inventory data where inventories are being kept down but are still building relative to sales. Business inventories were unchanged for a second month in August while sales fell a sizable 0.6 percent, driving up the inventory-to-sales ratio to 1.37 from 1.36. Inventory downscaling is underway in manufacturing which is being hurt by weak exports. Manufacturing inventories fell 0.3 percent in both August and July against a major sales decline of 0.7 percent in August and a 0.2 percent dip in July. There's less inventory downscaling, at least right now, among wholesalers where inventories rose 0.1 percent but sales at wholesalers are even weaker, down 1.0 percent in the month. Retail, the third component, is not immune with sales down 0.1 percent but inventories up 0.3 percent. Inventories are looking heavy which could limit production and employment growth and could emerge as a new concern for the doves at the Fed. It's not just the doves who will have concerns over today's reports. By the way, note the very lagging nature of these business reports. It's October 14, and we are just now discussing business inventories and sales for August. Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Autos and Restaurants Positive in Overall Weak Retail Sales Report; Last Month's Sales Revised Lower Posted: 14 Oct 2015 07:44 AM PDT Retail sales came as expected in today's release, but up only 0.1%. And last month was revised lower, from a 0.2% gain down to 0.0%. Once again autos were the strong point. Looking on the bright side, as is typically the case, Bloomberg Econoday explains it like this. Weakness at gasoline stations, where low prices are depressing sales totals, continues to exaggerate weakness in retail sales where the headline inched only 0.1 percent higher in September. Gasoline sales fell 3.2 percent in the month, excluding which the headline looks far more respectable at plus 0.4 percent. And there are plenty of tangible positives in the data including a third straight solid gain for motor vehicles, at plus 1.7 percent in September, and a second straight outsized gain of 0.9 percent for restaurants. Both of these are discretionary categories and point to underlying consumer strength. Clothing stores are also posting strong gains, up 0.9 percent despite negative price effects from lower import prices. Price weakness is not only pulling down gasoline sales but also sales at food & beverage stores which fell 0.3 percent. But there are signs of consumer retracement in the September report with the general merchandise category, which is very large, down 0.1 percent, and with health & personal care stores unchanged. Building materials fell 0.3 percent with electronics & appliance stores down 0.2 percent. Looking at adjusted year-on-year rates helps clarify the trends. Excluding gasoline stations, retail sales are up a very respectable 4.9 percent which is well above the less impressive 2.4 percent gain for total sales. Sales at gasoline stations are down a year-on-year 19.7 percent. Leading the positive side are motor vehicles, up 8.8 percent, and restaurants, up 7.9 percent -- both robust gains. Core sales, that is ex-auto ex-gas, the year-on-year rate is a moderate plus 3.8 percent for a 1 tenth decline from August. One of the very biggest positives for the consumer right now, aside from strength in labor demand, is the weakness in pump prices, which however in this report, where dollar totals are tracked and not sales volumes, turns into a negative. Still, the headline is weak and will likely lower third-quarter GDP estimates -- but for Fed policy, because the weakness is skewed due to gas prices, the results are harder to assess and may prove neutral. Third quarter GDP is just at 1%. Given the downward revision last month, I would expect today's report will knock a couple ticks off the expectation. There have been other reports since the Atlanta Fed updated its model forecast, and one is coming today. so we will see. But even if flat, is the Fed really going to hike looking at GDP of 1.0%? I highly doubt it. This report was nowhere near neutral. Mike "Mish" Shedlock Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

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