Nouriel Roubini : The Economic Mess and Financial Disaster that Obama Will Inherit

[RedEarth]

The good news is that America has just elected a president with leadership, vision and great intelligence. President Obama will also choose a first rate economic team: individuals such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner would be excellent choices for the position of Treasury Secretary. Obama and his team are fully aware of the very difficult economic and financial challenges that the country is facing and will work hard to resolve them.

However, Obama will inherit and economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollar in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap as the Fed is fast approaching the zero-bound constraint for the Fed Funds rate; the risk of a severe debt deflation as the real value of nominal liabilities will rise given price deflation while the value of financial assets is still plunging. This is the bitter gift that the Bush administration has bequeathed to Obama and the Democrats.

Given this dismal background, let us consider next in more detail the macro outlook for the U.S. and global economy and its implications for financial markets…


The latest U.S. macro news have been worse than awful: collapsing retail sales and consumption, free fall in capex spending by the corporate sector, sharply falling industrial production, sharply falling employment, housing still in free fall and home prices bound to fall 40% from the peak, collapsing auto sales, forward looking indicators of business (ISM) and consumer confidence dropping to multi-decade lows, sharp surge in corporate defaults, a wrecked banking system and financial system that will have to be partially nationalized. This is the most daunting set of economic and financial challenges that any president has had to face since FDR during the Great Depression. And in the meanwhile in the rest of the world things are as bad: a severe recession in Europe, Japan and other advanced economies; the risk of a hard landing in many emerging markets including China; an almost certain global recession; a severe global financial crisis.

So let us not delude each other: the U.S. and global recession train has left the station; the financial and banking crisis train has left the station. This will be a long and severe and protracted two year recession regardless of the best intentions and good policies of the new U.S. administration. It will take a lot of hard work and sound policies to clean up this mess and reduce the length and severity of this economic contraction.

And in the meanwhile the brief bear market sucker’s rally in the equity market has lost its steam and U.S. and global equities are starting to plunge again. As I argued for the last few weeks this was a bear market rally and markets could not defy the laws of gravity: a slew of ugly and worse than expected macro news, earnings news and financial news was bound to take a toll on equities and other risky assets. And now, after a brief rally markets are starting to plunge again. For 2009 the consensus estimates for earnings are delusional: current consensus estimates are that S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) will be $90 in 2009 up 15% from 2008. Such estimates are outright silly and delusional. If EPS fall – as most likely – to a level of $60 then with a multiple (P/E ratio) of 12 the S&P500 index could fall to 720, i.e. 20% below current levels; if the P/E falls to 10 – as possible in a severe recession, the S&P could be down to 600 or 35% below current levels. And in a very severe recession one cannot exclude that the EPS could fall as low as $50 in 2009 dragging the S&P500 index to as low as 500. So, even based on fundamentals and valuations, there are significant downside risks to U.S. equities.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini

[RedEarth]

1. More from Roubini

RGE Lead Analysts | Nov 1, 2008
Featured Blog Comments
“ Mr. Roubini, Can you share your thoughts on one point. Would JP Morgan's plan--and any like plans in the future-- to modify mortgages come back to... more ”

By Guest 11-01-2008

“ Nouriel, thank you for your great blog! Please continue to blog even when you get some interesting position in the new administration ”

By Guest 11-01-2008

“ Last Thread: "I am guessing that CA stands for California. Just out of curiosity, are you in Northern California or Southern California? " When I... more ”

By PeteCA 11-01-2008

“ You make a very important point, notwithstanding that it's not yet November 5th. I would suggest that should he be elected, his honeymoon with respect... more ”

By Guest from Canada 11-01-2008

“ I have heard Nouriel say the the dollar in the long term is a cooked goose and that it won't be the world's reserve currency, also that this will be a... more ”

By Guest 11-01-2008

“ RGE content: Really great oversight, congrats and THX! Maybe someone could you start eleborating more on Obamas economic policy. Next week would be... more ”

By Sasch 11-01-2008

“ I have been following up on Roubini's posts and his predictions usually turn out to be very accurate. In fact he might have been the one who prevented... more ”

By Guest 11-01-2008

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On Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor, Nouriel Roubini warns that the worst in markets and economies is yet to come. On October 23rd, Nouriel predicted the potential shutdown of financial markets. A day later U.S. stock futures suspended trading after declines of more than 6% at opening tripped the circuit breakers. Nonetheless, Nouriel does not expect another Great Depression, but states that policymakers must act quickly and wisely.


Here are the main elements of Nouriel’s outlook: Tsunami of corporate defaults; 2-year U-shaped U.S. recession that threatens to turn into an L-shaped one if policymakers do not regain control of the financial system; global re-coupling to the U.S. will advance from non-U.S. markets to non-U.S. real economies – not even the strongest emerging markets such as Brazil and China will escape global re-coupling; vicious cycle of deflation in goods markets, labor markets, commodity markets, financial markets, corporate and household earnings, and aggregate demand; de-leveraging to reduce excess debt in municipalities, households and some firms; U.S. stock markets declining another 20-30%, bottoming fall 2009 at the earliest, then moving sideways for years post-recession if growth remains anemic as it did in Japan after its 1990s real estate and equities bust; U.S. unemployment rise to reach 8-9%; the demise of the shadow banking system.

According to Nouriel, USD assets, commodities, U.S. and international equities, housing, and the USD are quite risky right now. Seek safety in cash or cash-like instruments such as T-bills and bonds of safe, large governments. Though he believes the U.S. dollar will retain its reserve currency status for decades, its status will gradually erode.

Given the size of the expected contraction in private aggregate demand (likely to be about $450 billion in 2009 relative to 2008), Nouriel argues that a fiscal stimulus to the order of $300 billion minimum (and possibly as large as $400 billion) will be necessary to partially compensate for the sharp fall in private aggregate demand.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini

[Karenina]

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