This morning President Obama announced a proposal for the financial reform of commercial banks.

The proposal is named “The Volcker Rule” after Paul Volcker, chairman of the Economic Advisory Board.  The Volcker rule addresses banks straying too far from their central mission of serving customers.  In the credit crisis it was realized banks were putting too much customer money at risk.  It would be fine for the banks to take risk, but because banks benefit from government financial privileges unique to banks such as, FDIC deposit insurance, the risk is taken on by taxpayers.

The rule states: “Banks will no longer be allowed to own, invest or sponsor, hedge funds, private equity funds, or proprietary trading operations for their own profit unrelated to seriving their own customers.”

Proprietary trading is actively trading stocks, bonds, currencies, or commodities using the firm’s money to make a profit for itself.

Is this rule good or bad?  Hard to say.  Without proprietary trading banks like Citi would’ve recently posted losses as most of their recent profits came from trading on the market’s upswing.

Warren Buffett commented that big investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group are likely to split off government-chartered banking operations if regulations proposed by President Obama take effect. “It would be logical that they would do so,” said Buffett.  Buffett also said he never had any problems with the old Glass-Steagall rules which largely kept commerical banks out of investment operations.

The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 by Congress.  Glass-Steagall prohibited commercial banks from collaborating with brokerage firms or participating in investment banking activities - parts of it were similar to the Volcker Rule.  In 1999, however, Glass-Steagall was repealed.

The Volcker Rule still needs to pass in Congress to become law.

“We don’t know when the recovery is,” Chief Executive of JP Morgan Jamie Dimon said on a conference call with investors this morning.  JP Morgan is the first of major banks to report its fourth quarter earnings for 2009.  The report exceeded expectations as analysts consensus for JPM shares was $.61 per share and actual earnings for the fourth quarter of 2009 were $.74.   There are 3.95 billion shares outstanding of JPM.

Is JPM’s success a sign of how other banks will fare, is it a sign of a recovery?  Maybe, maybe not.  The earnings for JPM were largely fueled by employee compensation - or the lack of compensation.  Usually investment bankers are compensated 45-50%, but JPM compensated their investment bankers only 33%.  When examining JPM’s actual business of commercial banking the earnings don’t look as strong.  JPM suffered losses on loans and credit cards, essentially consumer credit.  Does that mean consumer credit is down?  Let’s take a look.

Clearly credit has taken a hit in this last recession.  Zooming in we can see how severe a hit.

Obviously there has been a huge pull back in the credit markets, even with the governments infusion of capital.  We’ve already began to see the effects, wholesale and consumer loan banks shrank twenty-two and eleven percent compared to the fourth quarter last year.  It will be interesting to see if the rest of the big banks post losses in consumer credit as JP Morgan did or if they found a way to turn a profit off of it.

CPI numbers were also released today showing a .1 percent rise from November, analysts had forecast .2 percent.  This signals that the inflation feared by the Fed’s credit expansion and low interest rates policy has not yet taken hold.

Introduction

To gauge the US economy I examined Real GDP, an inflation index, housing units authorized by building permits, nonfarm payroll employment (jobs created and lost), and venture capital investment.

Real GDP

Real GDP is a great measure of the economy’s health and the direction it is heading.  The data I was able to find was only through 2008 and is missing a piece of the puzzle.  To give an idea of the missing piece and attempt to extend the puzzle I pulled a forecast from http://forecasts.org for October 2009 - June 2010.

The forecast for Real GDP turns positive in April giving hope that the general market believes the economy will begin to grow again.

Inflation

Inflation is currently low, which may be unexpected as the Fed has been infusing the system with massive amounts of cash in an effort kick start the economy.  It was not enough to lower interest rates to virtually zero to jump the economy, so the infusion of cash made sense, but it may have consequences.  There is almost no question that the inflation rate will go up as 1% is a definite support point, but the infusion of cash could turn out to be too effective.  If the infusion is too effective and the cash doesn’t make it back out of the system there could be a coming period of hyperinflation that would only exacerbate the economy’s current problems.  The Fed is of course aware of this fact and has been making the right moves by requesting reimbursement from the banks it lent to.  If these moves are enough, then hyperinflation shouldn’t need to be a worry, but a watchful eye still needs to be kept on inflation.

Housing Units Authorized by Building

There is no doubt this current recession was caused by the housing market bubble.  If the market is to recover the housing market will need to recover as well.  To gauge that recovery it is useful to look at the permits being authorized for new homes.

If we were to examine the full data it would be shown that 500 is an incredibly low number for a month.  We would also see when the number of permits being authorized was above 1,500 for a month this was usually preliminary to a fall off in the near future (about 1-2 years).  However, before this recession that was not the case, permits had been above 1,500 since January 1998.  To get a better idea of the severity and possible duration of this fall off it is useful to look at another drop off, in this case the early 1970s.

The 1970s market looks very similar to the current situation.  Both fell off shortly after crossing the 2,000 mark.  The differences are that the 1970s fall wasn’t quite as deep and before 1971 the market was not sustained at above the 1,500 mark for nearly as long as in the 2000s (remember the cross started in 1998).  In these fall offs the market’s demand is catching up to the inflated supply until it gets back to equilibrium.  We can infer that since supply was inflated for so long in the 2000 market, the catch up is going to take much longer.  From this data series we can conclude that although the housing market most likely hit its bottom the recovery is going to be a long and slow one.

Nonfarm Payroll Employment

The employment rate is important, the more people employed, the greater the GDP and wealth of a nation.  To simply look at the unemployment rate though is not as effective as it could be when examining the health and future of the economy.  In December 2009, 660,000 workers left the labor force (most likely because they couldn’t find work) and no longer were considered unemployed.  The unemployment rate did not change from November to December and could give the false impression of a decelerating growth in unemployment.  However, if those workers had been included the rate would have gone up 1%.  The underemployment rate could be used to measure the true unemployment rate, but it is often too subjective as the analyst has to decide what’s considered underemployed (is someone in a job that doesn’t use their skill set underemployed? or just a discouraged worker? or just people who have to settle for a part-time job instead of full-time?).  Instead I chose to examine job creation and job loss to get a better gauge of the prospects available for those who are unemployed (whichever way you consider unemployed).

More jobs have been lost in this recession than any recession in the last half century.  To get a better understanding of where we’re at now, let’s examine the tail of this graph closer.

The numbers are beginning to improve, and improve dramatically, but will the improvement continue?  Sometimes looking at the past can illuminate the future.

Examining the last recession (granted a much different recession) the recovery took time and job creation didn’t steady until after December 2003.  This recession has been much more severe and it wouldn’t be a far leap to take to say the recovery will also take longer, although the wheels do seem to be moving forward.

Venture Capital Investment

Vital to the creation of jobs is the entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur can start up a new business that can create jobs for thousands and eventually significantly stimulate the economy.  If there are many entrepreneurs at once this significant stimulation doesn’t have to be long term.  Entrepreneurs can’t do it all on their own - they need capital.  To get capital, especially when banks aren’t lending, entrepreneurs turn to venture capitalists to either get them off their ground or help their business grow.  The question is: are the venture capitalists there and ready to help when the entrepreneurs turn to them?

The numbers turned and fell in this recession, just like all the other numbers, but are the venture capitalists coming back, or have they at least stopped their flight?  The National Venture Capital Association conducted a survey during November 30 - December 8, 2009 and received responses from more than 325 venture capitalists in the United States.  The venture capitalists are optimistic.

63% of those surveyed thought investment would be the same in 2010 as 2009 (at least not lower).

44% of those surveyed thought investment would rise to $21-$25 billion.  Some quotes from venture capitalists:

“We will fund growth more aggressively in 2010 as we come out of the recession.” - Don Rainey, General Partner, Grotech Ventures

“We will increase our investment pace because we believe this a great time to invest - innovation and strong companies abound!” - Jeanne M Sullivan, General Partner, StarVest Partners L.P.

“Since Sep08 we have focused on firms that can reach breakeven on this round. In 2010 our willingness to take finance risk will likely return.” - Bronson Lingamfelter, Associate, Rose Tech Ventures

Conclusion

The general market thinks GDP will rise.  Hyperinflation doesn’t seem that likely.  Housing has hit bottom, only way to go is up, it might just take a while.  Job loss has slowed and job creation has begun, but it will likely take a while to sustain.  The venture capitalists are returning to empower the entrepreneur.  The entrepreneur can help with job creation.  From these signs it seems the economy has turned, but not abruptly.  It is only the beginning of a long path out of the woods.

The Detroit Auto Show opened today almost a year after US automakers GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy.  The theme for all automakers this year was small and economical - it seems the US automakers finally got the message.  Honda released its new CR-Z, a sporty hybrid meant to compete with Toyota’s less flashy, but market leading, Prius. The CR-Z unlike other hybrids will be able to cycle between three drive modes: sport, normal and economy.  The sport mode doesn’t come without a consequence as estimates for gas mileage are 36 city/38 highway compared to the Prius’ 51 city/48 highway.

Europe’s second-biggest car make, Peugeot, had its own revelation.  In a statement released today the Paris-based manufacturer reported falling sales of 2.2% for the last year.  Peugeot stated their sales were in a 14% slump in the first half of 2009, but were aided in incentive based programs similar to the US’ Cash for Clunkers.  The execs at Peugeot forecasted a recovery in the auto market outside of Europe, but were more dismal for their home market of Europe.  Peugeot Executive Vice President Jean-Marc Gales prophesied for next year,  ”a single-figure decline is probable, with the drop more like 8 percent than 2 percent.”

In broader news for the day, China reported increased lending for the beginning of 2010 and higher import and export growth for December.  The government seems to be sticking to its stance of support as China’s Finance Minister Xie outlines his viewpoint, “In 2010, active fiscal policies will continue, and this means we cannot weaken the intensity of fiscal support for economic development, avoiding the losses to our achievements that would come from an excessively early exit”

The Department of Labor released the week’s awaited job data today and the numbers weren’t good.  The unemployment rate remained unchanged since November at 10% for December.  Although that may sound alright, the unemployment rate doesn’t count discouraged workers or people who have left the workforce for other reasons.  More than 660,000 people left the workforce last month, which was the most in a single month for 14 years.  If those people had remained in the workforce the unemployment rate would’ve been at 11%.

The real disappointing figure released indicated 85,000 jobs had been lost in December.  This hit especially hard as November’s numbers had been revised to 4,000 jobs created and the markets were hoping for more of the same.  The outlook is not as grim as a year ago, when 700,000 jobs were lost in December, but the outlook does point to a slow economic recovery.  It should be noted: when the recovery does happen those discouraged workers will likely return to the labor force to take advantage of the jobs being created.  Even though the job creation would point to a recovering economy the unemployment rate could still rise.

The markets dropped in reaction to the disappointing job numbers, but made a late date rally assisted by tech giants IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and HP.  The S&P 500 finished up .4% at 1,144.98 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up .1% at 10,618.19.