Home Depot's Sales Growth and the Impact of Mortgage Rates

Jay Bryson, Wells Fargo Chief Economist, and David Kelly, JPMorgan Asset Management Chief Global Strategist, break down October's US CPI report that shows a steady easing in inflation. Liz Suzuki, Bank of America Securities Analyst, says consumers are relying on excess savings amid the discomfort of higher rates. Greg Valliere, AGF Investments Chief US Policy Strategist, expects Congress to pass a government funding bill and avert a shutdown.

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I'm Tom Keene, along with Jonathan Farrow and Lisa Abramowitz. Join us each day for insight from the best and economics, geopolitics, finance, and investment. Subscribe to Bloomberg Surveillance on demand on Apple, Well, Spotify and anywhere you get your podcasts, and always on Bloomberg dot com, the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business App. Is the Fed Done? Is this basically what we're looking at right now? The all clear sign for the Federal Reserve to have to do more. Jay Brison, Chief Economist, it W Wells Fargo joining US. Now I ask that to you, Jay, does this sound the all clear for the FED? It does for right now, Lisa. I mean, you know, these numbers are going to bounce around on a month by month basis. You know, I wouldn't. Our view is that the FED probably is done. But I don't expect FED officials to be coming out just because of this one report saying oh it's all clear, everything's great out there. I mean, I think they're still going to continue to be biased to potentially tightening. We don't think that will happen, but you know, in the next few months, these numbers kind of reverse and they kind of pop up, and the economy expands at a stronger unexpected rate, you could potentially see them going But again, I think that's a that's a high bar at this point. This adds to signs that there is some sort of cool and this is the reason why so many people are talking about a soft landings. You haven't seen the real cracks you'd expect ahead of a massive recession. Jay, do you think that is an accurate categorization of exactly what we're seeing with prices not going up as much as people had expected. Yeah, I think that's right, you know. I mean, if we were still clipping along at a year over year rate on the core of a five percent, we'd be talking about the Fed hiking even more. And when you start to hike even more, that's when you have the problems. So, you know, so the potential for a soft landing is still there. I guess what I'm a little bit still watching and concerned about is that the real FED funds, right, you know, the nominal rate minus some sort of inflation rate continues to drift higher, and that's what matters for the real economy. And so I think the Fed is going to delay easing at this point, and so we may or may not have a downturn early next year, but I think the next few quarters because monetary policy is going to remain restrictive. I think you're looking at headwinds on xanomic growth. Is it mission accomplished? There's a comedy to that, a painful comedy for our geopolitics, our history, Doctor Bryson. What are we getting to a transitory point where this Federal Reserve can say mission accomplished? Well, again, Tom, I don't think they're going to come out and say that right at this point. But you know what I would say is the bar for further rate hikes is getting higher and higher at this point. Many of the members on the FOMC think they have done enough at this point, and you know, today's rally and the tenure notwithstanding, you know, we still have seen you know, relatively high long term rates and so there's a fair amount of headwinds on the economy right now. Again, they're not going to come out and say mission accomplished right now. They need to see a few more months of this before I think they feel confident in that this is certainly a good start in that journey. But I still think, you see, you need to see a few more months of point two's before they say accomplished. Lisa, the mission accomplished December twelfth a CPI report before a December thirteenth FED meeting, and or just to really echo what Jay was talking about that the bar is getting higher and higher for them to go again, evidently the bar is getting a bit lower for them to cut rates. FED dated swaps are now pricing in the first twenty five basis point cut for June versus July. Before we got this print, Jay, there is this issue of what we're going back to. Are we seeing a fast enough pace of disinflation to believe that two percent is very much in the horizon. You and your team have been excellent about the last mile of getting inflation down from three percent to two percent? How far along that process are we? So, you know, I don't have the numbers here in front of me, Lisa, but you know, I think if you look at the three month annualized change in the core, we're probably at three and a half percent right now. So if you want to get back down to two, I mean, what you need is you need a few months of point twos and even point one to kind of get you there. And I'd think we're still looking at a number of months for that. We don't think we're going to be looking at that sort of number until the second half of twenty twenty four. But I don't know if you necessarily need to be two percent annualized for a few months before the FED cuts. I mean, they're going to be looking forward, right and if they are confident that things are really going to slow down, then they could start to cut rates, you know, maybe summer or so of next year, Doctor Bryson, thank you so much. The chief economist of Will's Frogo Ja Brison, David Kelly, will adjust. He's chief Global Strategists at JP Morgan Asset Management. With his years at Putnam knows when the facts change, he will change. David Kelly, how does your analysis change with this shock report? Yeah, so this this report is actually very close to who we're looking for here. As we're tracing as inflation, we can see right down to below two percent on the consumption deflator by the fourth court of next year. I think what's really important about this report is there's a large camp of people who say that the last mile is sticky, getting from three to two is sticky, and we don't see that at all. We're going to step down inflation all the way through the fourth court of next year. And what I think this report is showing is across the board, there's disinflation in the US economy and we're heading back to two percent. So I think that is gradually changing in the minds of the markets. I think that's why you've seen this move here, although it's not necessarily coming with paying David, and this goes to the soft landing Nirvana that Neil Dotta was talking about, that real average hourly earnings increased by zero point eight percent, up from zero point five percent. People's earnings are exceeding at the pace of inflation and in a material way for the first time in a long time. How much does that lead to a stickiness because people have the means to keep paying the prices. I don't think so, because I mean, we've had periods of positive real wage growth before. But what I'm saying looking at the earnings reports from the last quarter is companies are very focused on holding earnings in check. Now, yes, you can say that today's earnings are higher than inflation, but from a worker's perspective, they're not even getting catch up from all the inflation they saw over the last two years. So what you're seeing is partial compensation for previous inflation. But I don't see a lot of evidence that companies are being able to push higher prices the workers being able to push higher wages. So overall, I think what we're seeing we're not seeing a price wage spiral. We're seeing a price wage slinky. They're both gradually coming down the stairs slowly. I think this is just going to continue all the wage two percent, and there's a question mark around Yes, this is definitely good for bonds and you're seeing that rally in a massive way today. Is this necessarily good for stocks over the longer term if it is accompanied with a cooling in the economy. Yeah, I think it is. Now. There are things that could go wrong, and there's certainly parts of the stock market that are overpriced, but I think what's happening is work turning to where we were ten years ago. We're turning to an economy with two percent inflation, very slow growth. That low inflation can allow for lower long term interest rates, which supports all asci prises, bonds and stocks alike. And of course stocks are the ultimate long duration asset, so they will benefit from this lower rate environment. So, you know, soft landings never last forever. They'll eventually the rote and we'll fall into recession. But for right now, this does really show that inflation is steadily coming down, and we've just got to we've got to recognize that's going on. Regardless of Fed officials who occasionally say that we're not there yet or tour into declare victory. Look, I'm willing to say we're going to win this thing. It looks very very likely they're going to win this. In Invation down to two percent by the end of next year, Small Stacks Russell up four percent, NASDAK up one point eight percent, though Nasdaq one hundred, I should say Dow lags up one point one percent, Standard Impores five hundred, up fifty, up fifty five, up sixty, and now up sixty three points one point five percent. Doctor Kelly, I want to sum this up to the angst that Lisa Brambo Bramo Wit says on our nation's debt. If we get inflation down, if we have a successful FED, does that give you confidence that we can have in long term our minus G relationship, our minus G equation, that will mean our debt and deficit is of less fear a little bit. I mean, it's still what you're basically saying is we can service this debt at cheaper prices no matter how large it is. Yes, we can to an extent, But I think the amount of debt we've piled up in recent years is going to mean permanently higher loge of interest rates experienced ten years ago, so that that problem is going to be around for a while unfortunately, I see no evidence that there's any consensus in Washington about doing anything about it about it, so I'm still worried about poppulism. Left of the right just pushing these depths its higher and higher in the years ahead. Doctor Kelly, thank us so much, David Kelly, JP Morgan joining US unapplied mathematics of big box retail. Elizabeth Suzuki joins US at Bank of America Securities. When you were going through polynomials and you know, doing ferrisproof and all that and applied manth, you think you'd be an aisle four at home depot. I did not. I never thought that my work was going to include channel check at stores that I just go to anyway. In fact, now you know, as a homeowner for the last you know, six years, I'm in home depot pretty much every weekend, maybe every other weekend. But I mean it just never stopped. Wonderful. I've never been to the one downstairs Ferrell's down there once a week picking up something. Let me cut to the chase, which is the new post pandemic home depot world and for other big box as well. Can they fix the problem on the income statement? Can they take out expenses like Disney or you name the bank. Sure, you know, I wouldn't really categorize it as a problem on the income statement. When we think about what Home Depot is going to do this year in terms of sales, they're probably going to end up about fifty percent higher than they were in twenty nineteen. And just putting that in context of the broader industry, which is tracking up about like twenty percent versus twenty nineteen levels, that's an amazing amount of market share that Home Depot has been able to take. I mean, we're coming down off of these very very high levels of spend. During the pandemic. Homeowners had you know, easy rates to be able to borrow against. They also had you know, stimulus money to spend. They were moving at much higher frequency. A lot of people moved out to the suburbs during the pandemic. I mean, we've seen a slowdown in that, and you know, I think what's been surprising this year to the downside and just where we've seen that pressure on the top line is really mostly from housing turnover basically coming to a standstill, you know, so as as we expect. Yeah, so I think, you know, as as rates start to moderate or potentially even come down, maybe towards the second half of next year, I think that's going to help spur that housing turnover again and we're going to see more of a return to normalization in terms of that top line salesca Given what mortgage rates are, do you really think we can normalize the fact that some people just locked in their homes with the two three percent mortgage you just aren't moving anytime soon. Yeah, you know. I think it's like once rates really stabilize, maybe come down a tick, you know, a couple of rate cuts, potentially in the second half of next year, then you know the homeowner is saying, okay, like rates are probably not continuing to go up, I can potentially refinance. If I were to move today, I'm locking in a rate that's higher than what I wanted. But I feel like there's some potential for that to come down over time, and maybe it means that people buy a house that's a little bit smaller than what they wanted, or it means that you know, some people who are moving and you know, are going to have to absorb a higher rate. But because households have such high levels of savings they actually can absorb that. It's just it is uncomfortable, right So right now we're feeling that discomfort in terms of existing home sales, which are the lowest they've been in thirteen years. How much does home tapot rely on the housing market versus the fact that people aren't moving they are buying new refrigerators I'm just saying, or they're buying new stoves or new microwaves or other items in the house that might break. I mean at a certain point, does that actually help these companies? Yeah, I mean the sector is not as sensitive to housing turnover as one might think. I mean, when you're seeing these negative data points on housing every day, and if you already have sort of a negative bias, each one of those data points just kind of confirms your bias and you're going to say, of course, things are terrible right now. So what we've done is we tried to look at basically every macro factor you possibly could. And this is really where that applied mathematics comes into play. As we built a proprietary indicator of home improvement demand and we narrowed it down to fourteen different factors that are reported monthly that we can correlate to Home Depot and Low same store sales growth. At the end of the day, that's pretty much what drives these stocks is same store sales growth. So we narrowed it down to these fourteen factors, we built an indicator off of it, and then that indicator helps inform our views where we don't have to be dependent on the company's guidance, we don't have to be dependent on third party forecasts. Like we're able to actually look at the factors that matter, and then months to month we can track each of those factors and not get distracted by the noise that we hear in a lot of these other data correlated as Home Depot to some of the other retailers that are not related to the housing or home improvement sector. Yeah, I mean, that's that's a really interesting question. And I think, you know, when we boil it down and look to look at the broader sector and look at Bank of America's credit card data for the home improvement retailers, which is you know, just very broad category, Home Depot has outperformed that group pretty consistently, like actually very consistently over time, and Low's has as well. By at least two hundred basis points. So you know, the market share gains here are pretty material, and that's something that I want to just continue to kind of hone in on. In this result is even though their sales are down three percent, we've seen the category down you know, mid to high single digits year over year for most of this year. But in terms of correlation to you know, to other retailers, it's it's pretty independent. I mean, it's it's some factor of the broader consumer and the health there, and so obviously there's correlation to like a Walmart and a Target. But because it is related to housing and really home prices are one of the most important factors driving home improvement demand, that's really where it kind of differentiates. We've all been surprised by the strength that is economy this year. There's a bunch of companies that fall under your coverage. We're trying to work out whether we are at the precipice just around a corner from a severe weakning of the economy. Do you see any of that emerging whatsoever going into year end? Yeah, I mean I think that there are categories that we follow that are struggling more than others. You know, appliances, We talked about refrigerators. I mean, appliance sales are down. You know, the volumes have been under pressure. Margins are coming under pressure as well. We saw promotions that started in October for appliances. So if you're you should get on it, if you're you're in the market for a fridge, because I think those promotions are going to be, you know, pretty pretty attractive this year with the cameras. Some impressed. Yeah, I just kind ofd you get no, I just want to hear what you have to say. Carry on. But you know, consumer electronics is another one, right, I mean, as as Home Depot said in their press release or seeing pressure on big ticket consumer discretionary product. So consumer electronics definitely one of those. Appliance is kind of fit in that bucket from New York University just emailed in. So you're sitting here with Ken Langohn, He's gonna go. This is all a lot of great chat. But the bottom line after a three years pandemic and lays let's call it is, can they get back on track to the total return that we were weaned on? Can they get back to sixteen eighteen to twenty percent per year share return. Yes, I think, you know, in this current macro environment, that's tough, you know, because the consumer is pulling back on spending and we are coming off of this you know, sugar high from the last couple of years. But you know, we as we look to twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five, we see no reason why there shouldn't still be growth in the home improvement sector beyond the broader economy list. This was great, Thank yous. Going to see in person as well. Greg Fadia joint is right now, the chief US policy strategistic AHF Investments, Greg, in your mind, from your perspective, in your opinion, do you think this pass can pass, can get through Congress this week? I think they can. It's been so humiliating for them for the last few weeks. I think they know they've got to do something. The credit rating downgrade is serious. So yeah, I'm at sixty forty one minutes possible that a handful, once again, a handful of far right radical Republicans could kill this, but I think they want to give at least on this first bill. They want to give Mike Johnson a victory. This is what I was going to ask Greg, who does this particular offer upset more? Is it Republicans within his own party or elsewhere? What's a good point, John, There's so much in the bill to hate. For the Conservative Republicans, there are no spending cuts and they're quite upset over that. For the White House and the Democrats, the fact that there's nothing for Israel or Ukraine is very troubling. And we can say, oh, we'll get them some money in February. Well, they need money now, and I think to not send our allies this money sends a very bad signal. Greg. It's that time of year. Our Greg Durou owns a high ground and keeping track of who's leaving, who's coming, who's going in the House, in the Senate. Juan Williams in the Hill today or yesterday, I should say, really writes it up of the Republicans leaving the House. I think this is underreported. You've got Buck, You've got Granger, You've got LESCo, You've got Sparks, on and on. Is this going to be even a more Trump Republican party? Not in a year, but in a matter of weeks it could be. Yes, and a lot of the names you mentioned are people who are disgusted. They can't take it anymore. I also think there's a growing chance, a very good chance, that the next Senate will elect a year from now, will be controlled by the Republicans. They have, I think, an easy chance to take the Senate. Now, I look at this as wildly underport. You know, we'll focus on mansion and that in Spenberg or Virginia. Have you seen it like this before? Is this normal changing of the chairs to musical chairs or is there something unique here? Well? I tell you, Tom, I think what is unusual is to have Democrats talking now openly about a need to get a different nominee. That's really unprecedented. You probably have to go back to LBJ who lost support in his own party. That makes the Democrats nervous, the fact that they could lose the Senate and lose it convincingly. We'll get back to that in one second, because I do want to get your view on that. But just to build on what you're talking about, the fact that Democrats are joining with Republicans, some of them, to back Mike Johnson's plan. Isn't this what got Kevin McCarthy ousted his House speakers Bingo, that's right, And I got to think that we could have a repeat. You only need like three or four at the most five no votes and this whole thing could fall apart. So I think that Johnson has to worry that he could suffer the exact same fate as Kevin McCarthy. And there's still are nine, at least nine ultra conservatives in his party who are going to vote against this, at least as for now. What's worse though? On an international stage, you were talking about no funding for Ukraine and Israel. Is that worse than a government shutdown in the US. I think a government shutdown has become so ordinary. A brief shutdown wouldn't be as serious as sending a signal to our allies that we can't support them. I mean, this, I think is really very, very unnerving. And one other point I'd make quickly. I do think the final outcome is Johnson having to kind of deal with Democrats. I think that's the only way we're going to get a deal in the next week or two is to have the two parties unite on this. What will be the ramifications of that. I call that doing a John Bayner for an international audience. We've seen this before. But then what is the outcome if he does that? The outcome is going to be an effort to Ouston. I still think it's less than fifty to fifty. I think they want to give him a victory. Tom, but you could see a lot of Republicans say this is totally unacceptable. Great, let's talk about the race for the presidency next year. The field is narrowing on the Republican sign and it looks like Nicki Hade starts to attract some money. What do you make of the moves we've seen in the past week, Greg Well, Tim Scott didn't surprise me in the least. I think that they're the strongest other than Trump, of course, has been Nicki Haley over the last few weeks. She's got real momentum. DeSantis does not. He didn't even mention his endorsement in Iowa from the govern I can't figure it out. That was so Weirch can't just jump in, What was that about? Why didn't that come up in the debate. I don't get it. She endorsed him, I'd be bragging about it, but he didn't even bring it up in the debate. That was mystifying, but it's still trunks to lose. Trump has said some extraordinary things in the last few days about how his opponents are vermin using, really even by his standards, exceptionally harsh language, but his numbers hold up. He still has the base, and that means we need to narrow the field potentially even more for the Republicans. Who's next to drop out? Greig maybe Ramaswami. He's got money, but I could see him drop out. He's got no traction. His numbers don't look good. I think DeSantis and Nicky Haley stay in, and probably Chris Christy stays in, and that's good theater. Well, at this point, maybe the field is narrowing on the Republican side, but in some ways it's actually widening on the Democratic side. You said that there's real fear and there are real calls within the Democratic Party to have some other options than President Biden. How realistic is that? Who is everyone coalescing around? Well, that's the problem, nobody. And I think one of the strongest things that Biden has is the lack of any clear successor, and I think because of that, he will be the nominee. Apparently In the last twenty four hours, he's been very angry, profane, criticizing people like David Axelrod. I think he feels that he should be the nominee. I think he will be the nominee. What do you think he's so upset about, Greg oh mocking him for his age. Probably more than anything else. You can't do much. Can't do much about that, That's true, Greg Valier of Jeff Investments, that any of us can do anything about that. Greg, appreciate you up desa. Subscribe to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live every weekday starting at seven am Eastern, on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, in in the Bloomberg Business app. You can watch us live on Bloomberg Television and always. I'm the Bloomberg Terminal. Thanks for listening. I'm Tom Keen, and this is Bloomberg

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