My one-hundredth-and-thirty-seventh YouTube video “We’re headed to a recession…if the Fed is serious about fighting inflation” went up today.
In today’s YouTube video I argue that the Federal Reserve will have engineer a recession if it is serious about bringing inflation under control. This post gets more into the specific details of why I think that’s true than the video does. (I suggest reading this and watching the video “We’re headed to a recession.”)
The Federal Reserve isn’t staffed by mean old orcs (as far as I know) determined to bring on a recession because they think it’s fun to inflict economic pain on 350 million people. No, a recession is coming because 1) the Fed has only very limited, very blunt tools for fighting inflation, and 2) those tools aren’t very effective against the kind of inflation that is on the prowl in the current economy.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s May 4 meeting shows central bank officials in agreement on the ned for 50-basis-point interest rate increases at the June and July meetings. And then, the minutes say, the Fed would respond to developments in the economy either with more interest rate increases or a pause to let the economy recover. That’s essentially in line with market sentiment–although Wall Street may be more convinced of the need for a September interest rate increase. That agreement was reassuring to the stock market today.
As of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday May 18 shares of Target (TGT) were down 25% for the day after the company reported a big earnings miss for the first quarter. Let’s be clear. The sales picture at Target was very positive for the quarter. Same store sales were up 3.3% in the quarter. That was about three times higher than Wall Street analysts had expected. Revenue was up 4%. Here again Target’s $25.2 billion in revenue beat expectations for $24.3 billion in revenue. But earnings were terrible at $2.19 a share versus forecasts for $3.05 a share.
Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, fell in April to a year over year rate of 8.3%. That was down from an 8.5% rate in March, raising hopes that the economy had seen the inflation peak. But economists had been projecting a drop to 8.0% in April.. Which left financial markets considering the possibility that while inflation was falling, the pace of the decline would be disappointingly slow. Also worrisome was an unexpected gain in core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices. Core CPI inflation was up 0.6% in April from March after a 0.3% month to month increase in March.
Last week PepsiCo (PEP) declared a quarterly dividend of $1.15 a share, up about 7% from $1.075 a share. That brings the dividend yield up to 2.7%, almost exactly Coca-Cola’s (KO) 2.72% yield. On the basis of that yield and the pricing power that the company demonstrated in first quarter earnings I’m adding the stock to my Dividend Portfolio. I think it’s a good pick for a period of high inflation and uncertain economic growth.
Data, data everywhere in the next two days. From inflation to GDP. To begin with the Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to report first quarter U.S. GDP growth on April 28. Economists expect to see that the economy has grown at an annualized rate of just 1.1% in the quarter. That would be a huge drop from the 6.9% rate in the fourth quarter of 2021. But they warn that the headline number will be extremely misleading.
Neither company crushed Wall Street earnings expectations, but both reported good enough news in a very tough environment. I own PepsiCo in my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio, where it was up 220.4% from my initial December 30, 2008 pick as of the close on April 26. I will add the stock to my 12-18 month Jubak Picks Portfolio tomorrow, April 27, with a target price of $190 a share. The stock pays a 2.47% dividend I own shares of Coca-Cola in my Jubak Picks Portfolio, where it was up 29.8% from my February 19, 2021 pick, and in my Dividend Portfolio, where it was up 41.75% from my May 1, 2020 pick. Tomorrow, April 27, I will add shares of Coca-Cola to my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio. In addition I will raise the target price on Coca-Cola in my Jubak Picks Portfolio to $78 from the current $56 a share.
The International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for global economic growth in today’s regular update of its World Economic Outlook. The IMF is now projecting global economic growth of 3.6% in 2022. That’s down from a forecast of 4.4% growth in January before Russia invaded Ukraine. And the forecast is well below actual growth of 6.1% in 2021. The IMF also lowered its forecast to 2023 to 3.6% from the prior 3.8% growth.
I’m looking for more downgrades on projections for global economic growth as war in Ukraine gets hotter again with shift in fighting to eastern Ukraine. There’s certainly no indication that the war is about to wind down. We’ve already seen a set of lower forecasts for global economic growth. And we are likely to see another round of lower projections in the coming week or two.
The Producer Price Index (PPI), which tracks prices at the wholesale level, showed a 2.4% month to month increase in food costs for March from February. the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. That was the biggest month to month increase in 10 months. The jump was driven by increases in prices for grains, vegetables, cooking oils, and pork. This is bad news for future Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation–which hit an annual rate of 8.5% in yesterday’s report for March–since the CPI tends t track changes in the PPI with s long of month or two. Year over year food prices increased at a 16.2% rate.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose at a year over year rate of 8.5% in March. That’s the highest rate since December 1981.
