Monday, March 2, 2015

February ends with a massive, $460 Federal spending spree

No wonder why the stock market is flying. The data is in and February ended with a humongous, $460 billion spending spree by the Federal gov't. This surpasses last February's $459 billion injection. This may be the biggest February ever. It's certainly the biggest since I have been keeping records.

Last Friday ended with a burst of almost $56 billion in a single day. Total tax refunds for the month (individual and business) came in at $137 billion! That crushes last Feb's refunds of $133 billion. And we can expect another $60 billion in March and $50 billion in April. What a stimulus.

If the idiots in Congress don't f**k it up with the debt ceiling and budget the economy and stocks will be off to the races. Dow 20,000 like butter.

Sadly, though, the Fed will  raise rates. That's my forecast.

You  can't sell into this (stocks). Let's keep our eyes open for Congressional screw-ups mid-month, but for now this is blistering.

Dollar strong now, as it will follow bullish U.S. economic sentiment, but it adds to dollar top probabilities at some point. Bonds will be under pressure from fears of a Fed rate hike due to strong U.S. economy.

Oh yeah, one more thing...

Total employment taxes collected by the Federal gov't in Feb was $186.8b. That is down slightly from the $189.5b collected in January, however, February was a shorter month with less work days so I am hesitant to call any "weaker than expected" result for Friday's jobs number.

Consider this: Last Feb the total employment tax collection  was $177.1b and in Jan of last year it was $185b. That was an $8b differential between Feb and Jan. This year that difference was less than $3 billion, so I am calling Friday's number to be in line with expectations or stronger.

P.S. I teach all of this forecasting off the Treasury Statement  in my course. Watch out for the next one.


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