Category: US Treasury Market and Tax Revenue Trends

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The withholding data is the real deal. It continues to show the US economy growing rapidly. Inflation will continue to run very hot, and the Fed will remain under pressure to reduce QE. That showed up this week in Powell’s statement that the Fed will stop saying the bad word, “transitory” because people misunderstand what the Fed means by it.

Of course the real reason is that the Fed has been horribly, disastrously wrong, yet again. Just another in a series of compounding policy errors that work like compound interest over long periods of time. After a while, suddenly you’re talking about real money, and unimaginably big problems. So the Fed has a big problem now of its own making. There’s really no way out of this that doesn’t result in a mess.

The other change out of the Fed this week is that Fedheads are now talking about doubling the rate of cuts in QE. That would bring QE to zero by March instead of June.

Mark my words. That’s not going to happen. The markets will crash before that, and the Fed will reverse course, and restart QE, yet again. But how much damage will have been done already, and will the market still have the ability to get up off the mat again and punch the lights out on the upside?

My outlook now has more of a hard edge than it had a month ago. The Fed has demonstrated its cluelessness yet again. Therefore, I think that it is much more likely to be too late in response to the approaching “unexpected” crash that “no one could have predicted.”

Now, as they embark on another insane response to their previous insane policies, they face the massive compounding of the fragility they have caused in the financial system. The Treasury market simply won’t be able to maintain current prices and yields when the debt ceiling is finally lifted.  The Fed will be sharply cutting its purchases or indirect funding of Treasury issuance just when massive new Treasury supply will flood the market. It will be ugly.

So the rally in Treasuries has once again presented us with a gift horse. If I were trading Treasuries, I sure would not xxxx xxxx xxxx (subscriber version only).

Here are the data, charts, and analysis that tell you why you would want to protect yourself, and even profit from what’s coming at you very soon. It also analyzes the likely timing. Be ready.

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Federal tax revenues are still growing rapidly, signaling an overheating economy. The debt ceiling will be lifted. And the Fed will begin reducing its QE purchases.

9/3/21 These three things coming together as soon as October will pose a grave threat to the Treasury market, to short term interest rates, and ultimately to the stock market. 

In this report, we’ll focus on the threat to the bond market. Just keep in mind that stocks won’t be immune. I cover that perspective in the Technical Trader reports, but I will refer to them in these reports at critical junctures.

In view of Friday’s BLS nonfarm payrolls report, I just want to remind you that tax data is fact. The BLS jobs data is fiction. It’s constantly repainted after the fact to represent past reality, but it is not current reality. BLS jobs estimates are SWAGs based on severely flawed methodology. They rarely accurately represent actual current conditions, and then only accidentally.

If you want to play the jobs growth guessing game,  the tax data for September showed that the pace of growth in September was 16% stronger than the August number. However, given the BLS’s statistical massagery, their number could be anything. This is really just a game of chance each month.

The August BLS nonfarm payrolls reported increase was 235,000. If that was accurate, then the gain for September would be 235,000*1.16=  273,000. According to Bloomberg, the current consensus for that number is +455,000. But the BLS estimate for August should be revised upward.

Note post BLS release:  It was. The change for August was revised up by 131,000, from +235,000 to +366,000.” Adding that 131,000 to the reported gain of 194,000 = 325,000. That’s still an overstatement relative to the tax data reality. They’ll need to revise down next month. Meanwhile, clueless economists will revise their October estimates down even more, and the stupid guess the number game will go on. 

Furthermore, the jobs data is irrelevant for our purposes. It is tangential to the knowledge we need to understand and successfully trade the markets. Supply and demand rule the prices in the securities market, just is they rule the commodities markets, real estate, labor, and the day to day prices of the things we buy. Each market has its own forces of supply and demand.

For Treasury prices, and their inverse, yields, we’re interested in the supply of demand for Treasuries. There’s no need for secondary or tangential data. We have the primary data. We know the near term supply outlook, because the Treasury publishes it in advance. We can estimate how it might change because we have the real time data on Federal revenues and outlays, and hence the budge deficit and future issuance needs.

We don’t need the silly exercise of pretending to know how many jobs were created each month. We have the withholding tax data. That’s the primary data that tells us how much revenue the Federal Government is taking in, and whether it’s increasing or decreasing.

Withholding tax collections strengthened in September. While more revenue would normally reduce supply, we don’t know where spending will go. That will matter in the longer run.

In the shorter run, the big unknown is whether there will be only a temporary fix for the debt limit, as opposed to something longer term. If it is only a short term fix, we may see accelerated Treasury issuance. That would draw down the Fed’s RRP slush fund much faster than probably would have been the case under a long term lifting of the debt ceiling.

That would be more bearish, sooner.

Note: After I wrote that Congress did agree to a short term fix, with momentous implications. 

9/3/21 The next problem is that the Federal Government should run out of cash in early October. At that point, it must raise or suspend the debt limit. The Treasury will then begin issuing a torrent of supply to replenish the accounts it raided under the “extraordinary measures” it has undertaken since July 31 to avoid exceeding the debt limit.

The pile of cash in the Fed’s RRP program will act as a slush fund to buy the new T-bill issuance. There are a number of moving parts to the outlook for what happens then, including the mix of T-bills versus coupons in the new issuance schedule. Likewise, we don’t know for sure how holders of RRPs will react to any of this. We have no historical precedent to guide us.

The impacts could vary. Either short term rates, or bond yields could xxxxx xxxxx (subscriber version only). We should see the first hints of market impacts when xxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxx . But one way or another, once the RRP cash xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx (subscriber version only), the real problems will mushroom.

By then it could be too late. It’s possible, even likely, that significant market damage will already have occurred. Therefore the time to act is now. If I owned long term bonds I’d xxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxx (subscriber version only). Or I’d need to be willing and able to hold to maturity while suffering the loss of purchasing power that rising inflation would entail.

Meanwhile, I would keep a close eye on stock market technicals for any sign that it’s time to stop trying to ride that bubble wave any further.

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Wall Street wiseguys and the mouthpieces of the Mob @CNBC and @WSJ don’t know it yet, but the US economy went over a cliff in the last two weeks. They don’t know because they’re not tracking the real time Federal tax collection data like we are. And that data shows us that’s what happened.

Here’s the data, what it means for the market and for us, and some suggestions on how we might view it and use it to possibly profit in the short run, and protect ourselves in the longer term. There are an unusual number of variables, unknowns, and yet to be knowns in this outlook, but we have a general idea of a couple of likely scenarios on how the next few months might unfold. If you want to avoid the catastrophe that lies ahead, it behooves you to be familiar with those scenarios, and to track the variables as they become known.

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Withholding tax revenues rose sharply again in May (chart in subscriber version). Non withheld taxes also rose sharply. The economy is growing faster than the Fed would have you believe, and that the Wall Street mob seems to believe.

Revenue momentum is hot, hot, hot. But spending is hotter (table in subscriber version). The impact of economic stimulus will lead to economic overheating and embedded inflation.

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Meanwhile, the Treasury’s bloated cash account is coming down slowly. To get to the level legally mandated by the budget law by the deadline (reported in subscriber version), the Treasury will need to continue T-bill paydowns. This will continue to provide a bid for both stock and bond prices.

But that will all reverse, and we know when. The Treasury’s excess cash will be gone. Enormous monthly deficits will then need to be fully funded by borrowing. Hundreds of billions in new Treasury debt will start hitting the market for months to come. The pressure on the markets will multiply instantly.

Both bond and stock prices would begin to decline rapidly. The Fed would be forced to act.

The media is reporting the Fed is thinking about getting ready to talk about tapering bond purchases. Forget about it. It’s ridiculous. When the Treasury gets down to its required cash level, not only will the taper talk masturbation end, but Fed yield control, with unlimited QE, would be in play.

A slow Fed response would come too late to prevent real, and possibly lasting, damage to market prices of stocks and bonds (Treasury yield and price charts in subscriber version).

Meanwhile the US Treasury has pumped $600 billion into the accounts of holders of expiring T-bills since late February. Those holders are mostly money market funds, but include dealers and other big institutions. Dealers and big investors deploy that cash to buy longer term Treasuries and, in some cases, stocks. More paydowns are coming. That’s short term bullish for both bonds and stocks.

But beware! The end is nigh! And we know when. This report shows you how we reach this conclusion, and when you need to take action to either take advantage or get out of the way. With 9 beautiful charts and tables to show you exactly how and why we reach this conclusion!

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Have a question about Liquidity Trader? Click the chat link at the bottom right of the page, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions. I am often available to chat with you directly between the hours of 5 AM ET and 4 PM ET weekdays. At other times I’ll respond by email.

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Back on February 5th, I wrote in this report:

The withholding data strongly suggests that more stimulus isn’t needed. As vaccine distribution widens, the economy should heat up on its own. Any additional government juice will heat it up even more.

What the unintended consequences of that will be, we can only guess. Here’s one guess. Institutional balanced fund managers will dump Treasuries and buy stocks.

That will first lead to a blowoff in stocks, which seems to be underway now. But a collapse in the bond markets that’s not offset with equal profits for Primary Dealers from stocks, could lead to a crash in stocks too.

I repeated that message in early March based on the February tax data.

So we knew very well that blockbuster jobs numbers were coming. The BLS (Bureau of Liar Statistics) may lie sometimes, but the tax data doesn’t. All you need to do is look at it. Wall Street eConomists can’t be bothered.

The US Treasury is kind enough to report its tax collections to us EVERY SINGLE DAY, one day after it is collected and counted. Who could ask for better data than that? Pure, raw, unmanipulated, hard data, that not a single Wall Street, or academic, eConomist pays any attention to.

Instead, they watch the heavily manipulated, after the fact, subsequently massively revised, government economic data. Then they spin it to fit their narrative. Wall Street has something to sell you. Academic eConomists are either selling, acting as paid shills, or are simply on ego trips.

There are a handful of good ones out there, and some who are doing serious research, I guess. We don’t hear about them. But the ones who show up repeatedly in the Wall Street media are shills often getting paid to represent a certain political or business point of view.

Conversely, we focus on the hard data. No interpretation needed. It is what it is. Compare this year with the same period last year. Put it on a chart or two. See how that comparison is moving along month to month. And you know EXACTLY what the economy is doing in real time without having to guess what some lying liar eConomist is trying to sell you.

In March, withholding taxes rose at the same rate as in February, which was very, very strong. I show you the trends via a nice chart and a couple of tables in this report, and I tell you what it means for the Treasury market, and what it implies for stocks.

And that is that we are headed for a big cliff. Enjoy the party while it lasts. I’ll tell you when we’re near the cliff.

Subscribers, click here to download the report.

Available at this link for legacy Treasury subscribers.

KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW, before the Street does, read Lee Adler’s Liquidity Trader risk free for 90 days!

Act on real-time reality!