Global markets were choppy, but higher in recent trading even though President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine marked the 1,000th day of the Russian invasion by attacking an arsenal inside Russia with US-made ATACMS missiles – all with lame-duck President Joe Biden’s approval. Russian President Vladimir Putin retaliated by signing a new threatening nuclear doctrine that lowers the threshold under which Russia might use nuclear weapons. Markets were anxious, yet, for a small rise in energy prices, surprisingly not impacted by this dangerous escalation of war in Europe.
In addition, Russian interference is suspected in the damage to two undersea fiber-optic communication cables in the Baltic Sea—one between Lithuania and Sweden, and the other between Finland and Germany. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said this should be regarded as sabotage.
Nonetheless, global investors appeared to be less interested in geopolitics and more interested in President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, which continue to dominate the news feeds on a regular basis. There is no doubt that there will be changes under the new administration, particularly since many of the candidates Trump has selected seem primed to make a sweeping overhaul of Washington, DC.
This political shift inspires us to make some initial changes to our sector emphasis. The proposal of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services is likely to shift the government’s emphasis from medicines and pills to “healthfulness.” And we expect the new administration will be less likely to mandate vaccines (a major boon for big pharma over the last five years) while also looking for ways to downsize Medicare/Medicaid expenditures. This leads us to downgrade the healthcare sector from overweight to neutral this week. And assuming Trump will succeed in his promise to Middle America to create and retain jobs in the US, we are upgrading the consumer discretionary sector from neutral to overweight. See page 15.
And as we wrote last week (Post-election Euphoria, November 13, 2024, page 1), “The appointment of billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to a newly created Department of Government Efficiency may be Trump’s most interesting and challenging “disruptive” effort yet. It may be Elon’s greatest challenge as well; but if successful, it could be revolutionary and move the needle on the federal government spending and the federal deficit.” In our view, this new department of the federal government may also be the source of new investment ideas in the longer run.
2025 Challenges will include the Deficit
However, President-elect Trump will have a host of challenges when he takes over the Oval Office, and along with trouble in the Middle East, Russia/Ukraine, making the federal government more efficient and agencies more responsive and responsible, he will also inherit a massive federal deficit.
In October 2024, the first month of the fiscal 2025 year, the deficit was $257.45 billion, up from $66.56 billion in October 2023 and it was the 71st consecutive October that federal receipts fell short of outlays. This deficit represented 6.9% of nominal GDP and was well above the average of 6.1% recorded in fiscal 2024 or the 6.5% seen in fiscal 2023. However, in 2022, the average debt-to-GDP was even higher at 7%. One reason for this was that the IRS allowed individuals and corporations affected by natural disasters to delay filing their taxes from April to November 2023 and this resulted in higher-than-usual receipts in October and November 2024. Adjusting for various timing effects of other federal outlays suggests that the increase in total outlays from October 2023 to October 2024 would have been around $40 billion instead of the reported $114 billion. Still, total receipts were 19% lower and total outlays increased 24% from October 2023. Some of the outlays were to fill the Veterans’ Administration’s $12 billion budget hole. Even so, in the past year individual income taxes fell 24%, corporate tax receipts plummeted 73%, and the deficit is bleeding red ink.
All in all, the fiscal 2024 deficit of $1.83 trillion was 8.1% larger than in 2023 and as a percentage of nominal GDP increased 0.3% to 6.4%, the largest deficit during an economic expansion since World War II. The federal government borrowed $2.3 trillion in fiscal 2024, bringing total outstanding debt to $35.46 trillion, a 7% increase from the previous fiscal year. Since nominal GDP was $29.35 trillion in the third quarter, this means outstanding debt to GDP rose to 121% in September. Interest payments were more than 13% of total federal outlays in 2024. In sum, these deficits will be a huge burden to the bond market in 2025. See page 7.
Inflation is Not Going Quickly
Headline CPI increased 2.6% YOY in October, up from September’s 2.4%. Energy was unchanged month-to-month on a seasonally adjusted basis, but down 1.1% month-to-month when not seasonally adjusted, and down 4.9% YOY. Gasoline prices were down 12.2% YOY. In other words, lower energy costs substantially helped headline CPI in October. Core CPI rose 3.3% YOY, which was unchanged from September, but many segments of the CPI index increased more than headline on a month-to-month basis. In particular, other goods and services rose 0.4%, medical care increased 0.3%, recreation was up 0.3%, and housing rose 0.2%. See page 3.
The downtrends in headline and core CPI are clearly on pause since headline CPI is ticking up for the second month in a row and core CPI at its highest level since May 2024. In addition, a variety of core CPI indices have been trending higher in recent months. See page 4. This means it is possible that the Fed may pause in December, or until there is more economic data to suggest another rate cut is necessary.
Since many economists appear to be singularly focused on housing, particularly owners’ equivalent rent, they can take solace in the fact that this segment of the CPI continues to ratchet lower, although it remains relatively high at 5.2% YOY in October. The same is true of the broad service sector, which is moving lower, but at 4.7% YOY remains well above the Fed’s target of 2%. More importantly, some service sector areas are reporting that prices are trending higher. In October, health insurance rose 6.8%, motor vehicle maintenance and repair rose 5.8%, medical care rose 3.3%, and other goods and services increased 3.3% YOY. See page 5.
There was good news this week from the National Association of Home Builders which announced that their confidence index inched higher for the second month in a row in November. And Walmart Inc. (WMT – $86.60) raised its annual forecast for the third consecutive time indicating that consumers are buying more groceries and merchandise.
Technical Update This week brought little change to our technical indicators and though the major indices have given back half of their pre-and post-election rally, they continue to show positive momentum. There are a few signs of deterioration in the 10-day averages of new highs and new lows and our 25-day volume oscillator is yet to record an overbought reading indicating a lack of upside volume. This, plus the lack of a new high in the NYSE advance/decline line since October 18, 2024 suggests the Trump rally may be extended near term. Nevertheless, seasonality and a history of yearend gains following most presidential elections favors the bulls.
Gail Dudack
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