jwithrow, Author at The Phoenician League

The Great Reorganization – Part 1

We spent the past two weeks talking about what a normal economy looks like… and how it’s all been distorted over the last 50 years or so. Even the US Treasury market – the bedrock underpinning the global financial system – is starting to crack.

As we’ve discussed, the current financial trajectory is not sustainable. But that doesn’t mean the American financial system is doomed.

If you’ll permit me, I’d like to venture into an esoteric corner of the global financial system today… and maybe even peak behind some curtains. What I’ll share with you is my analysis – the conclusions I’ve come to after many hours of careful consideration.

The Federal Reserve (the Fed) began publishing something called the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) in April 2018 – two months after Jerome Powell became Fed Chairman. We didn’t realize it then, but the second American revolution was underway.

The bedrock is cracking…

We’ve been talking the past week and a half about the economy, interest rates, and normalization.

Today, let’s delve into the cornerstone of global finance—US Treasuries. Treasuries have been the bedrock of the global financial system in a sense… but the foundation is now cracking.

US Treasuries are government debt securities issued by the United States Treasury Department. They’re considered risk-free assets. And they underpin much of the global financial system. Here\’s how they work:

Domestic Role: Treasuries finance the US government’s operations. They’re sold to investors who then receive periodic interest payments at the specified yield for the full duration of the security. Insurance companies, banks, investment funds, and private corporations buy Treasuries to earn a rate of return on their cash reserves.

Global Role: Treasuries have been the world’s reserve currency since the end of World War II. Countries and central banks use them to store value in dollars, settle international transactions, and to manage their own currencies. This allows the US government to borrow money at lower rates and issue financial sanctions with global impact.

Both domestic and foreign institutions have used US Treasuries as a primary reserve asset for over 50 years now. But as we discussed yesterday, every aspect of the economy has been distorted in that time… and the US Treasury market is no different.

How the normal became abnormal

Yesterday we discussed how a normal economy operates. We can summarize it as follows:

Market-based system & sound money –> savings –> investment –> economic growth –> strong division of labor –> standards of living rise –> increased savings –> increased investment –> stock market rises –> increased entrepreneurship –> more startups –> outsized gains for investors –> good companies scale… bad companies go bust –> recessions clean out the system –> resumed economic growth

The problem is, these days we have interventions at every stage in the process described above.

For starters, arbitrary regulations and an arcane tax code distort activity throughout the economy. Paired together, regulations and taxes create a system of incentives and disincentives that influence economic activity.

Certain incentives may make a particular company or project look worthwhile when it otherwise wouldn’t be. And the reverse is also true. Disincentives can make a particular investment look bad when it otherwise would be productive.

When this happens, it throws a wrench in the free-flowing system we outlined above. It doesn’t take long before market signals are muddled. Then malinvestment sprouts up to cover the wheels of commerce like kudzu on a neglected building.

Normal and not normal…

This past Saturday was Fall Fun Day up here in the mountains of Virginia.

Fall Fun Day is an annual festival featuring food, beverages, music, and a variety of outdoor games for adults and children alike. There are sack races… mummy wrap contests… hay rides… and I witnessed a little spontaneous karaoke as well.

Here’s a shot of a small gathering underneath an ancient elm tree:

There’s a long tradition of annual harvest festivals throughout America’s Appalachia region.

The autumn harvest itself may have lost significance since our conquest over food scarcity… but these annual celebrations are still rooted in the region’s agricultural heritage. It’s Thomas Jefferson’s vision for America actualized.

While Fall Fun Day has become a normal occurrence for us each year, there’s nothing normal about what’s happened to our economy over the past 16 years.

What I learned watching the bankers party

Today we’ll wrap up our talk on the Fed, interest rates, and the future…

When we left off yesterday, I mentioned that something telling happened right in my back yard. Michelle Bowman spoke at the 133rd Annual Convention of the Kentucky Bankers Association last week.

Bowman is one of the 12 voting members of the Fed. She occupies a seat representing America’s community banks. That’s why she was invited to speak at the Kentucky Bankers’ event.

The convention took place at the historic Homestead Resort up here in Hot Springs, VA. As fate would have it, my in-laws came to visit us the same weekend… and we put them up in a room at the Homestead. We were there on Sunday as the conference attendees were getting settled in.

I met a few Kentucky bankers at the pool that afternoon. And we could see their opening reception from the balcony of my in-law’s room. It took place out on the lawn.

Here’s a picture I took as they were setting up:

Here we can see the grounds crew setting up tables and chairs for the event. This entire lawn was packed with bankers enjoying food, beverages, and live music a few hours later.

Breaking ranks…

Yesterday we discussed an odd dynamic – US Treasury rates went up after the Federal Reserve (the Fed) cut its target interest rate by 50 basis points two weeks ago.

That being the case… what happens next? Is the Fed going to slash rates aggressively from here?

When we left off yesterday, I mentioned that Fed Chair Jerome Powell said two things in his talk that I found telling. First, he emphasized that he remains focused on “normalization”.

When a Wall Street Journal reporter asked Powell if rate cuts were a signal that the Fed would also start buying Treasury bonds again, the answer was a clear ‘no’.

Powell told him that this isn’t even a point of discussion right now. He added that “you can have the balance sheet shrinking but also be cutting rates”.

Here’s why that’s important…

The Fed purchased over $8 trillion dollars’ worth of Treasury bonds from 2008 to 2022. They created money from nothing to buy those bonds… which pumped liquidity into the financial system and helped drive interest rates down to zero.

When they were Fed Chair, both Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen made it a habit to buy more Treasury bonds whenever the Fed’s existing bonds matured. That kept the cheap money game going for longer than otherwise would have been possible.

Powell broke ranks and reversed course with his quantitative tightening (QT). This chart tells the story:

The Fed Cuts… Rates Go Up

When we left off yesterday, we were talking about interest rates… and hoping it didn’t put everybody to sleep.

All the talk in the financial world (geopolitics aside) has been the Fed’s 50-point rate cut.

Does it signal that the easy money days are coming back again? Are small-cap stocks finally going to catch a bid? Are 3% mortgages coming back?

Before we project too far, I think it’s important to point out that the Fed can only influence short-term interest rates with its monetary policy decisions. It cannot magically “set rates” throughout the economy.

As evidence – both the 10-year and the 30-year Treasury bond rates went up after the Fed’s 50-point rate cut.

The 10-year Treasury rate was 3.62% on September 16^th – two days before Powell’s announcement. By September 23^rd, the 10-year rate had jumped to 3.75%. It increased 13 basis points.

The 30-year Treasury rate was 3.93% on September 16^th. It spiked to 4.13% in the days after the Fed’s rate cut. That’s a move of 20 basis points.

Meanwhile, shorter duration Treasuries have hardly moved since the Fed’s rate cut.

Source: Bloomberg

This shows us that the Fed’s rate cut was already priced into the market. Short term Treasury rates have not fallen much since the big announcement.

Yet, long-term rates have risen materially. In financial lingo, this is known as the “bear steepener”.

What the Fed’s rate cut actually means…

Let’s talk interest rates this week.

In a normal world, interest rates would be the least interesting subject one could possibly bring up. Who cares?

But we don’t live in a normal world… so the markets fixate upon interest rates.

On September 18^th, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell announced that the Fed would cut the federal funds (fed funds) rate by 50 basis points (0.50%).

The federal funds rate is the Fed’s target interest rate benchmark. It is the rate at which banks lend money to each other overnight.

Banks are required to maintain a certain amount of reserves, and sometimes they need to borrow money from other banks to meet their requirements. The federal funds rate is the rate they pay for those short-term loans.

For this reason, the fed funds rate serves as a benchmark for other short-term interest rates in the economy. This includes rates on commercial and consumer loans as well as savings and money market accounts.

According to Keynesian economic theory, cutting the fed funds rate should lead to lower interest rates throughout the economy—which in turn will encourage businesses and consumers to borrow money and engage in increased economic activity.

In other words, the Keynesians believe rate cuts “stimulate” the economy. Will that be the case this time around?

I’ll share my thoughts on that with you later. But first I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed.

The world’s moving fast – let’s catch up

Dear friends,

Hello and happy Monday to you!

Joe Withrow here. It’s been quite a while since I’ve written you. Nearly six months, in fact.

A lot has happened over these past six months. It seems like everything in the world of money and markets is moving faster than ever before.

So with your permission, I would like to start writing to you weekly once again.

If that’s okay – stay tuned! But if you would prefer to opt out of these emails, you can simply unsubscribe using the button below. No worries…

I’m reaching out today because we’ve been having some robust discussions inside the Phoenician League investment membership. We’ve been plugged into what’s playing out on the macroeconomic front these past few months… and it occurred to me that I should share some of these thoughts more widely. Actually, it was Tom Woods who kicked me into gear, so to speak.

For those who know ol’ Woods, Tom hosts weekly calls as part of his entrepreneur mastermind program. He mentioned to us on a call last week that hardly anybody “in our circle” maintains a mailing list these days.

Tom mails his list daily. And he named two other people who do the same… and that’s about it.

Ironically, it used to be that mailing lists were the only way for people of like-mind to connect back before the internet.

That’s how guys like the late Dr. Gary North got their start—by sending physical newsletters to people in the mail. That was the only way to communicate “alternative” ideas about economics and politics back then.

The Magic of Technology

Today we’ll wrap up our discussion on building an all-weather portfolio.

Looking back over the past two weeks, we have covered:

That leaves us with deepest and most diverse investment theme: high-technology stocks. They will be our topic for today.

And we have to start with one of my favorite quotes…

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This quote comes from the late technologist Arthur C. Clarke. It’s in his book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible… which published in 1962. Talk about prescient.

Here’s the thing – we all use space-age technology every single day and think nothing of it.