Just like the anecdote that so many times they mistakenly said that the wolf was coming and when it finally arrived nobody believed it, we could be in recession.
The accelerated increase in interest rates should be causing the economy to slacken rapidly and inflation to halt, but this is not happening at the pace the Central Bank is looking for.
Several sectors of the economy have reflected the impact of higher interest rates. Still, they seem to rebound quickly, such as home sales, tourism, and retail consumption, but they are happening at different paces and not together, causing a sharp drop in job creation but not a generalized drop.
There are hard-hit sectors such as office buildings where many companies are shrinking by accepting that employees work from home; interesting since a study determined that people work 2.5 hours less per day when they work from home, but the announced death of shopping malls has not happened, since consumers have increased their purchases online. Still, they have not abandoned going in person.
The tourism sector is still robust despite the significant increase in the price of airline tickets and hotels. The explanation that this is due to unmet demand from not having traveled during the pandemic no longer sounds very logical one year after the reopening of the economy.
The consumer confidence index is at its highest point in 18 months, while the production index has been below 50 for seven months, indicating a contraction. On the other hand, the commodity index is 11% below its highest point 6 months ago.
There is no doubt that Europe is already in recession, with job losses and two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Not to mention China, where the economy shrank by an annualized 4% last quarter, forcing the government to cut interest rates, unlike the rest of the world. Unemployment among 25-39-year-olds is at an all-time high. The Chinese attempt to create a new financial system failed, and the condition of their banks is very complicated, with uncollectible accounts almost the same size as their stockholders’ equity.
I am very concerned that productivity in the U.S. has been declining for five straight quarters, now at a -2.5% annual rate, which is the worst enemy in the fight against inflation.
The fact that home prices are again rising despite mortgage interest rates doubling is the lack of inventory at 3.1 months of sales versus the traditional 6.5 months, reflecting the fear of developers to build more homes in the face of the specter of recession.
The U.S. electoral campaign is already beginning in earnest, with 14 Republicans throwing their hat into the ring and only 3 Democrats, as opponents rarely emerge when the president announces his desire to be re-elected.
The way things are looking today, we will see a Biden vs. Trump rematch, a pathetic situation pitting a cognitively challenged and apparently corrupt older man against an over-the-top, egomaniacal, and obnoxious individual, but one who had good ideas during his term in office.
Recordings have surfaced of both of them where situations arise that could prevent them from competing for the presidency. Still, it is unfortunate and unbelievable that in a country of 335 million people, there can be no better choices than what we see.
I only hope that in case Biden abstains, they will not nominate Kamala Harris, who has been showing incapacity and zero accomplishments for three years, and who does not even remotely seem to have the size for the position.
We saw a new blunder by President Biden, who sent Secretary of State Blinken to try to smooth things over with Xi Jinping of China. The next day said that the Chinese leader was a dictator, immediately provoking a formal protest and a very negative response.
It is interesting that of the total U.S. imports, 22% came from China and dropped to 17% with Trump’s sanctions, while those from Mexico are $455 billion annually or 14.1%.
The U.S. trade deficit has grown even though it has declined against China. However, it is indisputable that the supply chain is still basically of Asian origin and will take a long time to migrate to the Americas. Imports have helped lower inflation, as the fall of other markets forces exporters to sell more cheaply to maintain their production plants.
During June, there were two significant rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, the first eliminating the possibility for universities to consider the applicant’s race in the admissions process, affecting mainly black or Latino minorities; the second overturning Biden’s illogical proposal to cancel 400 billion dollars of student debt. It is worth noting that repayment was halted during the pandemic and is just about to restart. This decision will substantially impact spending since much of it will go to debt repayment. Still, it forces those who incurred the debt to pay it and does not impose on taxpayers the responsibility of paying a liability that was not theirs.
Among other significant events of the month was the reopening of talks with Iran to sign a nuclear non-proliferation treaty that appears much weaker than the one Trump canceled. Also, the rapprochement with India to attract the economy with the largest population on earth to the U.S. commercial world while diminishing its relationship with China, including the sale of U.S. armaments for the first time.
Unwelcome news was the report that the math and reading ability of children in the U.S. was reported at the lowest point since 1967, blaming the pandemic lock-in and the current emphasis in schools on sex education and identity controversies rather than fundamental teaching.
Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 3.7% even though 339,000 new jobs were created; inconsistent figures since they come from two different censuses. I believe the number of new jobs is actually lower and we will see a downward revision in the following report. In the technology sector alone, 200,000 jobs have been lost, which, while payrolls had significantly been inflated, represents a considerable drop, especially in above-average paying positions.
The government notified the banking system of its intention to increase the capital required to operate by 20%, making it more expensive and challenging to obtain new loans and contributing to the recession.
The World Bank revised its global growth projections to 2.1% for the current year and 2.4% for 2024 while estimating that Mexico will grow 2.5% and the United States 1.1%.
It is interesting to know that the United States, China, and Japan have issued 63% of all the bonds in the world.
Now we will focus on Mexico, also amid an election campaign. However, it is not yet known which of the corcholatas will represent Morena, nor if the opposition can find a single candidate to have even a tiny chance of winning the elections.
Today it seems to be Claudia Sheinbaum, who is leading Morena, but Ebrard’s position is curious since he is pretty popular among Morenistas but not so with AMLO.
His proposal to create the Secretariat of the 4T, headed by López Obrador’s son, was a crude attempt to get closer to the President, and being rejected made him look bad to his followers.
I do not think it is unreasonable for Ebrard to leave Morena and run as a candidate for Movimiento Ciudadano.
For the opposition, the best candidate would be Enrique de la Madrid in terms of capacity. Still, he has powerful headwinds, such as his last name, the PRI’s tricolor t-shirt, and his rich guy image, and I also think it would be difficult for him to be accepted by the PAN and the PRD.
Creel filed a legal controversy against the mega projects to reaffirm his presence, but Xochitl Galvez seems to be gaining strength in the PAN. However, I do not feel she has the strength to contend against Morena, who has tremendous political and economic machinery at its disposal.
I do not understand the President’s position, who attacked the army a couple of times, once for the five homicides in Matamoros and another one when arresting General Jose Rodriguez for the Ayotzinapa case. At the same time, he gave the Mexico City Airport (AICM( to the Navy. The president has made his relationship with the military a focal point of his administration, and any rift takes power away from him.
The economy in Mexico has a lot of positive news and a lot of negative news, although overall, it is not going badly.
Let’s start with the good:
- Reserves at $203 Billion, a good shield against an untimely capital outflow.
- Global interest in the Tehuantepec interoceanic crossing.
- KPMG, the accounting and consulting firm, says Mexico is the most attractive country to invest in Latin America
- Growth revised positive, inflation at 5.18%, lowest in 2 years
- Cetes was down to 11.02% in the last auction; imports of capital goods increased 24.1% from 2022 to 2023, and government debt was below 50% of GDP, the lowest of OECD countries.
- And Modelo Especial beer is the best-selling beer in the United States!!!!
On the negative side:
- Canada and the U.S. formal complaint about alleged violations of the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC on GMO corn, energy, and transportation.
- Airlines and Airports with the slowest month-over-month growth in 2 years
- ANTAD reporting completely flat sales at self-service stores
- Foreign investment in Mexican bonds is at 15.16%, its lowest level in 13 years
- Finally, the manufacturing PMI is at 50.5%, which shows expansion but is the lowest reading in 8 months.
A serious problem I would like to comment on is the electricity supply as it evidenced failures during the heat wave, which scares foreign investors who see these infrastructure problems as a serious impediment to their plans to move their production from China to Mexico.
A few comments from other countries: Guatemala is violating all the principles of democracy, disqualifying one by one the opposition candidates, Brazil moving closer to China and buying more oil from Russia, and finally, England reporting an increase in immigration, the main reason for leaving the European Union.
The U.S. stock markets had a spectacular first half of the year against all forecasts, with the NASDAQ technology index rising 31% and the S&P of the 500 largest companies increasing 16.89%.
The curious thing is that 8 large companies, Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Tesla, and Meta (Facebook), account for more than 85% of the increase in value of the entire market and 25% of the NASDAQ companies are 75% or more below their highest point.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) related companies were responsible for a $4 trillion increase in the market value of publicly traded companies listed on stock exchanges.
Today Apple’s market value ($3 Trillion) exceeds France’s GDP ($2.7T), and Google’s value ($1.7T) is greater than Mexico’s GDP ($1.6T).
Bonds had a fairly flat month, with the 10-year Treasury bond returning to 3.80% at the close of the month from 3.32% following the April bank failures. Emerging bonds had a slight improvement being the best fixed-income category.
The dollar was stable with some downward trend, and the peso continues with great strength, hurting the 4 pillars of the Mexican economy, exports, remittances, oil, and tourism.
I still believe that sanity will overcome pride and the Mexican authorities will try to take the peso to the $18.50 level, but every head is a world of its own, and AMLO is obsessed with a strong currency.
Gold is stable at $1,929, and bitcoin had an important jump to $30,500 thanks to the fact that two of the main money managers applied to create an exchange instrument to facilitate the purchase of the cyber currency.
Further Reading: