As the market enters October, there is both good and bad news. The sell-off that started in September is continuing. The good news is that we should be close to the bottom.

 

Blame the waterfall decline in the price of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, the continuing gains in the U.S. dollar, and the seasonal pattern in the equity market. Throw in the absolute mess in Washington and the market's free fall can be understood.

 

None of this should be new to readers because this is exactly what I predicted would happen back in August. I expected markets to correct into the second week of October and here we are with one week to go. The argument over government spending levels and the potential shutdown has forced investors to focus on not only the amount of our national debt but also the rising cost of servicing it.

 

The fiscal deficit this year is more than $1.5 trillion. Overall, the U.S. government debt is roughly $33 trillion with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 120 percent. Estimates are that we are now paying 8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to holders of Treasury bonds worldwide just to service this debt. That number could easily rise to 9-10 percent, or more.

 

I suggest that you take a peek at my Thursday column. It will explain the background and risk to the markets caused by the dysfunction in Washington. Bottom line: we can expect Moody's credit agency to cut its rating of our government debt unless the country and its politicians can get their act together.

 

The Fed's policy of keeping short-term interest rates higher for longer doesn't help. But the bond market is now also bidding up the yields on the longer-end of the bond curve as well. The 30-year bond is almost 5 percent. This is shaking investors' confidence in the soft-landing scenario popular among many economists.

 

As such, all eyes are on the employment numbers. These are the keys some believe to what is happening to the economy. Stronger job numbers and wages mean more tightening from the Fed. Weaker data is okay, but if it is too weak, that would set off fears of a deeper recession. That leaves investors in an impossible situation where they are looking for a Goldilocks scenario where jobs are neither too hot nor too cold. Good luck with that.

 

This Friday's non-farm payroll numbers were almost double the 171,000 job gains expected. The U.S. economy added 336,000 jobs, which sent yields even higher, and stocks lower on the news. And yet, yields, the dollar and stocks all reversed during the day. That should tell readers that we are in the bottoming process.

 

Yield-wise, the benchmark 10-year, U.S. Treasury bond hit 4.83 percent, which was its highest level since 2007. And we all know what happened in 2008 (the financial crisis). Not that I am expecting something similar, but a lot of the investment community is freaking out at where interest rate yields can go from here.

 

I think we may be close to a short-term top in yields, at least in the short-term. That is one reason I am expecting a bottom in the equity markets. And where yields go, so does the U.S. dollar. The two asset classes have moved together over the last month. Friday's jobs number pushed the greenback up .65 percent on the news but it quickly gave all its gains back. The dollars’ gains have trashed just about everything from commodities, foreign markets, U.S. equities, and precious metals. That could be changing.

 

Underlying the rise in yields has been the avalanche of U.S. Treasury auctions that began in earnest this quarter. I'm guessing that yields have risen in anticipation of that event. Could we therefore see a "sell on the news" event where bond traders cover their shorts and buy back bonds at some point soon? Stanger things have happened.

 

Last week I targeted the 4,200 area on the S&P 500 Index, which is the 200-day Moving Average as a level we could look for in the bottoming process. I also said that looking for a perfect number like that is not usually the end of the story, since markets overshoot on the upside and the downside. We could easily slip below that number before all is said and done.

 

Keep an eye on the dollar and yields because they are the big dog wagging the tail of the equity markets. When they roll over, as they may be next week, stocks will have reached a bottom.

 

Bill Schmick is the founding partner of Onota Partners, Inc., in the Berkshires. His forecasts and opinions are purely his own and do not necessarily represent the views of Onota Partners Inc. (OPI). None of his commentary is or should be considered investment advice. Direct your inquiries to Bill at 1-413-347-2401 or email him at bill@schmicksretiredinvestor.com.

The ongoing partisan battles in Congress over a government shutdown are making daily headlines. However, whether a shutdown ultimately occurs or not may not be the most important outcome of this squabble.

 

Over the weekend, at the 11th hour, Congress and the White House passed a continuing resolution to postpone a government shutdown until Nov. 14, 2023. Axing funding for Ukraine was the price Republicans demanded to kick this spending can down the road. This was somehow hailed as a bipartisan victory, one of the few in this deeply divided Congress. It seems to me that the only victor in this mess was Russia. 

 

Since then, a handful of radical right Republicans in the House, led by Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from Florida and the subject of an ethics probe, forced a vote to push House Speaker Kevin McCarthy out of his post. Combined with most Democrats, the House voted to oust McCarthy.

 

Gaetz and the radical right had accused McCarthy of breaking his word to conservatives on spending bills and how he would run his house. They pointed to McCarthy's behind-the-scenes, side deal with the Biden administration to restore funding for Ukraine as just another reason not to trust the speaker. The straw that broke the radical's back, however, was when McCarthy reached out across the aisle to come up with a compromise that would keep the government's lights on at least temporarily.

 

Democrats were divided on their response to the turmoil within the Republican Party. But few Democrats trusted the speaker, given his partisan track record. In the end, partisan politics dictated they voted to oust the speaker, even though it meant that no work could be done in Congress until a new speaker was elected.

 

If one steps back from the hour-by-hour circus in Washington and looks at this debacle from the perspective of others, the U.S. government appears to be in a precarious state. Many developed countries plan their budgets, their spending levels, the level of debt, etc. in five-to-10-year increments. Our government can't even agree on whether they will be able to pay its employees next month.

 

It is also becoming increasingly apparent that the U.S. government is unable to control spending on both the short-term and long-term levels. This failure to manage continues to happen under both parties. This is not just my opinion. Two of the three largest credit agencies, Fitch and Standard and Poor's, have come to the same conclusion.

 

Back in 2011 Standard and Poor's reduced our long-held triple-A credit rating to AA, citing a weakening in the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions. 

 

This year, thanks to the debt ceiling debacle spawned by this same group of dysfunctional politicians, Fitch, another big credit rating agency, downgraded our debt as well. Fitch cited a "steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last twenty years." They went on to explain that "repeated debt limit political stand-offs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management."

 

And here we are again — more than two months later — repeating the same suicidal behavior. The actions among U.S. legislators befit a banana republic economy, not the U.S. Only one credit agency is left, Moody's, that still maintains a AAA rating for our sovereign debt. How long that status remains is my concern.

 

Politicians of both parties fail to realize (or don't care) that these rating changes have a real cost to the nation and taxpayers for decades to come. The cost of issuing U.S. debt and paying bondholders interest is climbing year after year. As it stands today, interest payments alone are costing the country 8 percent of GDP. That percentage is expected to increase exponentially. We are talking billions of dollars, readers, if not trillions, when we consider the cost that we will have to bear (as will our children and their children).

 

Moody's has already commented that a shutdown would have credit implications. A downgrade in their rating based on "the weakness of U.S. institutional and governance strength," as well as "the fractious bipartisan politics around a relatively disjointed and disruptive budget process" indicates to me that unless things change dramatically next week, we could see yet another downgrade.  

 

Bill Schmick is the founding partner of Onota Partners, Inc., in the Berkshires. His forecasts and opinions are purely his own and do not necessarily represent the views of Onota Partners Inc. (OPI). None of his commentary is or should be considered investment advice. Direct your inquiries to Bill at 1-413-347-2401 or email him at bill@schmicksretiredinvestor.com.