Friday, April 26, 2013

The SBA and captious


captious

KAP-shuhs

Having an inclination to find faults, especially of a trivial nature.

Via French from Latin capere (to seize).

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TIP OF THE WEEK 

SBA has decided to not be so captious towards borrowers.

SBA form 912, Statement of Personal History, has been revised.  The most notable revision is question 8. 

It used to ask: Have you EVER been charged with, and/or arrested for, any criminal offense other than a minor motor vehicle violation?

It now asks: Have you BEEN arrested in the past six months for any criminal offense?
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Indices:

PRIME RATE= 3.25%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate April 2013 = 3.20%
SBA Fixed Base Rate April 2013 = 4.67%
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Debenture Rate for April  

The debenture rate is 2.08% but note rate is 2.117% and effective yield is only 4.162%.

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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 
To put this any other way would be captious.

Economic growth in the first quarter of this year soared to a 2.5% annual pace, compared to the anemic 0.4% pace in the last quarter of last year.

That might be overstating it a bit. 

In March, employers added just 88,000 jobs vs. an average 208,000 the previous two months.

Keep your eyes and ears open for Friday’s report on jobs for April.  

Here is a summary of net monthly payroll employment and this week’s interesting little table of data:

February 268,000
January 148,000
2012
December 155,000
November 161,000
October 137,000
September 114,000
August 142,000
July 181,000
June 45,000
May 77,000
April 68,000
March 143,000
February 240,000
January 243,000
2011
December 203,000
November 157,000
October 112,000
September 158,000
August 104,000
July 127,000
June 20,000
May 25,000
April 232,000
March 194,000
February 235,000
January 68,000
2010
December 121,000
November 93,000
October 210,000
September (41,000)
August (1,000)
July (66,000)
June (175,000)
May 431,000
April 218,000
March 230,000
February (36,000)
January (26,000)
2009
December (150,000)
November (11,000)
October (111,000)
September (215,000)
August (201,000)
July (304,000)
June (443,000)
May (322,000)
April (504,000)
March (699,000)
February (651,000)
January (655,000)
2008
December (681,000)
November (597,000)
October (423,000)
September (403,000)
August (127,000)
July (67,000)
June (100,000)
May (47,000)
April (67,000)
March (88,000)
February- (83,000)
January- (76,000)

What does all this mean?

I don’t know.

Just before April’s job report comes out, the Federal Reserve meets on monetary policy.

Federal Reserve policy makers have said they will keep interest rates low until the labor market improves “significantly.” 

It would appear that interest rates are never ever going up.
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OFF BASE
Captious critics of Juan Pierre like to point out that he has been caught stealing more times than anyone else playing baseball right now.

Having been thrown out 198 times, Juan is now number seven on the all time caught stealing list.  He is now number eighteen on the all-time stolen base list with 596 steals.

Doing the math for stolen base percentage (SB% = Stolen Bases/(Stolen Bases + Caught Stealing), Juan comes out to just over 75%.

There is a statistic related to stolen base percentage called "Stolen Base Runs" or SBR ((.3 x Stolen Bases) - (.6 x Caught Stealing)).  The break even success rate for steals (the rate at which an attempt to steal is neither helping nor hurting the team in terms of total runs scored) is about 67%. Each successful steal adds approximately .3 runs to a team's total runs scored.

So Juan is doing just fine.

Juan now needs another 20 stolen bases to pass George Davis who has 616 stolen bases.  George began playing for the Cleveland Spiders in 1890.  Fortunately he was traded away after a few years as the 1899 Spiders became the worst team ever wining only 20 games while losing 134.  The Spiders lost 40 of their last 41 games, and finished 84 games behind the 1899 National League champion Brooklyn Dodgers.  The Spiders were so bad that the National League forced them to quit playing.  While they were at it, they forced three other lousy teams to also fold.  The American League soon arose to fill the void.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy

SBA 7(a) loan volume for the week ending April 19th surged to just over $293,840,000.  

That's a nice little pick up in pace.

Keep in mind that the correlation of SBA 7(a) loan approvals with our nation's economic performance appears to be quite strong.


Just for fun I calculated the correlation coefficient between SBA 7(a) loan volume and GDP for over six years using the Microsoft CORREL function.  It came out to a statistically significant 0.86.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

SBA 504 loan debenture rate for April


Debenture Rate for April 

The debenture rate is 2.08% but note rate is 2.117% and effective yield is only 4.162%.

Monday, April 15, 2013

The SBA and inosculate


inosculate

in-OS-kyuh-layt

To join or unite.

From Latin in- (within) + osculare (to provide with a mouth), from osculum (little mouth), from os (mouth).

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TIP OF THE WEEK 

The President and Congress will hopefully inosculate over the budget when it comes to the Small Business Administration.

President Obama's FY 2014 budget for the SBA decreases by $109 million from the 2012 enacted level, due primarily to the decreased estimated subsidy cost of its 7(a) Business Loan Guarantee Program.  

For the 7(a) program, the return to a zero subsidy rate removes the need to seek appropriations.  It also reduces lender fees.

This will provide $17.5 billion in 7(a) loan guarantees.

Last year SBA approved $15.1 billion in SBA 7(a) loans.
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Indices:

PRIME RATE= 3.25%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate April 2013 = 3.20%
SBA Fixed Base Rate April 2013 = 4.67%
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Debenture Rate for March

The debenture rate is 2.23% but note rate is 2.259% and effective yield is only 4.30%.

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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 
Last week’s auction of 30 year Treasury bonds drew a yield of 2.998 percent.

That’s a significant drop in yield compared to the 3.248 percent at March’s 30 year bond sale.  That rate had been the highest in a year.

The slope of the yield curve—the difference between the yields on short- and long-term maturity bonds—has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth.

This flattening of the yield curve may be signaling weaker growth.  

Keep your eyes and ears open for the Federal Reserve’s report on industrial production and capacity utilization.

Here is what capacity utilization rates have done:

1997- 83.6
1998- 83.0
1999- 82.4
2000- 82.6
2001- 77.4
2002- 75.6
2003- 74.6
2004- 79.2
2005- 80.7
2006- 82.4
2007- 81.5
2008- 79.9
2009- 67.3
2010- 74.8
2011- 76.7
2012- 79.0

What does all this mean?

I don't know.

The capacity utilization rate, which measures how much plants and factories are being used, is one of the Federal Reserve’s favorite gauges of the economy.

The Federal Reserve watches capacity utilization rates to see if production constraints are threatening to cause inflationary pressures. Bottlenecks or shortages often lead to inflationary pressures that would drive prices even higher.

Several analysts have pointed to a rate between 81% and 82% as a tipping point over which inflation is spurred.

Last month’s Fed report showed that capacity utilization was at 79.6 percent.

79.6 percent is only 0.6 percentage points below its long-run (1972--2012) average.
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OFF BASE
For some inexplicable reason, Monday, April 15th is not a federal holiday.

It’s Patriots’ Day which is a state holiday in Massachusetts, Maine and a school holiday in Wisconsin.  Patriots’ Day commemorates the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War.

According to the Federal Reserve, here are the remaining holidays for 2013:

Memorial Day May 27
Independence Day July 4
Labor Day September 2
Columbus Day October 14
Veterans Day November 11
Thanksgiving Day November 28
Christmas Day December 25

As if that’s not enough of a compelling reason for today to be a national holiday, it’s also Jackie Robinson Day- honoring the day Jackie Robinson made his major league debut.  April 15 was Opening Day in 1947, Robinson's first season in the Major Leagues.

Considered “the father of modern base-stealing’, Jackie accumulated 197 stolen bases, including 19 steals of home.   Jackie’s most famous steal of home plate was in the first game of the 1955 World Series against the Yankees.   After Jackie swipes the run, Yogi Berra rips his mask off and starts screaming at the umpire.

Surprisingly, Rickey Henderson, who stole 1406 bases, only stole home four times in his career. Lou Brock, who stole 938 bases, never stole home.

As far as I can tell, Juan Pierre with 592 stolen bases has never stolen home plate.   

Juan attempted his first steal of the season last week and was thrown out at second.  He has now been caught stealing 198 times.  That puts him sixth on the all time caught stealing stolen base list.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy


Thanks to improving loan performance, the SBA 7(a) loan program will operate without a subsidy saving tax payers close to $200 million.

$17.5 billion in SBA 7(a) loans are budgeted for the next fiscal year.  

You CAN have your cake and eat it too.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy

President Obama's FY 2014 budget contains positive news for the nation's job-creating small businesses that will benefit from increased access to capital under SBA's flagship 7(a) business loan program to start, build and grow their businesses.

"Small business loan guarantees are funded at levels above historical demand, but at a greatly reduced subsidy cost from the 2012 enacted level and the 2013 Budget level, largely due to the improving economic forecast and lower estimated loan defaults." 

For the 7(a) program, the return to a zero subsidy rate removes the need to seek appropriations and allows a lowering of the ongoing lender fee to 52 basis points (.52 from .55) for FY 2014.

To encourage economic growth and job creation, the Budget provides $112 million in subsidy for SBA's business loan programs. This funding supports $17.5 billion in 7(a) loan guarantees.


Monday, April 8, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy


If you remember, the economy peaked in December of 2007 and then plunged like a rollercoaster.

SBA 7(a) loan volume foreshadowed this drop in gross domestic product. 

SBA 7(a) loan approvals peaked at $15,223,526,000 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005. 

They then dropped to $14,525,100,000 for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006. 

Approvals continued to drop over the next twelve months to $14,292,141,000.  

SBA 7(a) loan approval volume continued to fall by more than 48 percent. 

The drop in economic activity soon followed.

The correlation of SBA 7(a) loan approvals with our nation's economic performance appears to be quite strong.

Just for fun I calculated the correlation coefficient between SBA 7(a) loan volume and GDP for over six years using the Microsoft CORREL function.  It came out to a statistically significant 0.86.

So what caused that initial drop in SBA loan volume?  

The drop in SBA 7(a) loan approvals was attributed to the elimination of a small loan program – LowDoc – and more importantly an increase in the guaranty fee for SBA loans.

Friday, April 5, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy


Critics contend that SBA loans are a small part of financing for small business and that they are irrelevant. 

 In 2007, the Government Accounting Office reported that SBA’s share of loans guaranteed by the 7(a) program was an estimated 4.1 percent of all outstanding small business loan dollars for loans under $1 million  (GAO 07-769 Small Business Administration: Additional Measures Needed to Assess 7(a) Loan Program’s Performance).

Despite this apparent small slice of the small business financing pie, SBA 7(a) loans account for most long term loans made to small businesses.    When comparing SBA term loans with bank CALL report term loans, SBA loans account for as much as 70% of all long term loans made to small businesses.   The longer term amortization conserves precious cash flow and improves the permanent working capital of small business (Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship by Anthony Wilkinson, President and Chief Executive Office, National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, March 29, 2012). 

The Small Business Administration, created in 1953, has become the largest single guarantor of financing to small business in America (The Importance of Financial Market Development on the Relationship between Loan Guarantees for SMEs and Local Market Employment Rates Craig E. Armstrong, Ben R. Craig, William E. Jackson III, and James B. Thomson Working Paper 10-20 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland).


Thursday, April 4, 2013

SBA 7(a) Rate Update


Indices:

PRIME RATE= 3.25%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate April 2013 = 3.20%
SBA Fixed Base Rate April 2013 = 4.67%

Lenders can charge up to 2.75% over these indices.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

SBA loans are good for the economy


For the six month period ending March 31st, 2013, SBA 7(a) loan approvals totaled $8,222,936,000.    While that’s an increase of 22% from the same period a year ago, it’s flat from the prior quarter.

As a matter of fact, SBA 7(a) loan volume has been stagnating since early last year.

Here is a breakdown of SBA 7(a) quarterly loan volume for the last year:

1st quarter 2013               $4,049,146,000
4TH quarter 2012             $4,173,790,000
3rd quarter 2012              $4,359,166,000
2nd quarter 2012              $4,039,042,000
1st quarter 2012                 $3,443,723,000

Notice how loan volume surged about 17% in the second quarter of 2012?  The third quarter also grew but only at about an 8% pace.  Since then loan volume has been slowly eroding.

This decline in SBA loan volume is rippling across the economy.

Gross domestic product surged at a 3.1% pace in the third quarter of 2012.   The fourth quarter slowed to a 0.4% annual rate.

The correlation of SBA 7(a) loan approvals with our nation's economic performance appears to be quite strong.

Just for fun I calculated the correlation coefficient between SBA 7(a) loan volume and GDP for over six years using the Microsoft CORREL function.  It came out to a statistically significant 0.86.

It will be interesting to see where the first quarter GDP numbers end up when the initial estimate is reported in a few weeks.

The prescience nature of SBA 7(a) loan volume with respect to the gross domestic product leads one to the inevitable conclusion that SBA 7(a) loans contribute positively to gross domestic product.

It should be everyone’s patriotic duty to get a SBA 7(a) loan.

Monday, April 1, 2013

The SBA and faux


faux

foh

Artificial; fake; false.

From French faux (false), from Old French fals, from Latin falsus (false), past participle of fallere (to deceive).

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TIP OF THE WEEK 
The premium on the sale of the guaranteed portion of a fully priced SBA 7(a) loan just went over 125.75%.  

There now is no excuse for a lender to not do a SBA loan.

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Indices:

PRIME RATE= 0.00%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate April 2013 = 0.00%
SBA Fixed Base Rate April 2013 = 0.00%
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Debenture Rate for April  

The debenture rate is 0.00% but note rate is 0.00% and effective yield is only 0.00%.

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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 
The United States Treasury just announced the auction of a $1 trillion offering of a new 100 year bond at a 0.00% interest rate.

The bond offering quickly sold out as investors were more concerned with preservation of principal backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.

With the issuance of this radical new treasury instrument, the federal government’s annual debt service of $359,796,008,919.49 has been eliminated and the debate over deficit spending has ceased.

Congress will now be able to focus on more important issues such as why there is no federal holiday between Washington’s Birthday and Memorial Day.

What does this mean?

I don’t know.

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OFF BASE
As you may have guessed by now, it is April Fool’s Day.

SBA loans, however, are the way to go.  And that’s no fooling.