Monday, October 24, 2016

The SBA and bigly

bigly
big´ly
In a tumid, swelling, blustering manner; haughtily; violently.
Of uncertain origin, possibly from a dialect of Old Norse, bugge meaning big man

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TIP OF THE WEEK 

A bigly enervation of the guidance on affiliation and franchises should be in the new Standard Operating Procedures.  The intractable trichotillomania over eligibility should grow quiescent.

SBA expects that the SOP should be arrant and not frustraneous.

In other words, there is no reason to be pervicacious and oppugned to SBA loans.

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Indices:
PRIME RATE= 3.50%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate October 2016 =3.53%
SBA Fixed Base Rate October 2016 = 4.86%
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SBA 504 Loan Debenture Rate for October
The debenture rate is only 2.21% but note rate is 2.249% and the effective yield is 4.261%.
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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 

There does not appear to be splentic presentiment over a bigly recrudescence of interest rates.

There was strong demand at the last auction of 30 year Treasury bonds.  The 2.470 percent high yield was just a half of a basis point below the yield awarded at the prior auction and 29.8 basis points higher than the record low set in the July auction.  Long term bond yields continued to climb after comments by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen suggested there may be benefits in letting inflation run higher than the current target of 2% in order to stimulate the economy.

Inflation has for years been dormant in the U.S., which is a key reason the Fed has held off on raising interest rates in 2016. That’s led investors to seek longer-dated debt, which offers higher yields but is more sensitive to inflation expectations. In one sign of investor complacency, the real U.S. 30-year yield -- which subtracts the level of inflation based on the core Consumer Price Index -- is hovering near the lowest level since 1980.

One of the Fed’s leading indicators on inflation is capacity utilization which measures the amount of a plant that is in use at factories, mines and utilities .  The Federal Reserve recently reported that capacity utilization for September edged up 0.1 to 75.4 percent after having dropped in August.

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- 66.9
2010- 74.8
2011- 76.7
2012- 79.0
2013- 77.8
2014- 78.8
2015- 76.5

What does all this mean?

I don’t know.

Capacity utilization at 75.4% is 4.61% below the average from 1972 to 2015 and below the pre-recession level of 80.8% in December 2007.  Several analysts have pointed to a rate between 81% and 82% as a tipping point over which inflation is spurred.  The Federal Reserve typically won’t initiate increases in interest rates until then.

The BLS reported that the seasonally adjusted CPI for all urban consumers rose 0.3% (3.6% annualized rate) in September. The CPI less food and energy rose 0.1% (1.4% annualized rate) on a seasonally adjusted basis.  According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.2% (2.1% annualized rate) in September. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index also rose 0.2% (2.1% annualized rate) during the month. The median CPI and 16% trimmed-mean CPI are measures of core inflation calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) monthly CPI report.

Inflation has generally been moving up, and most of these measures are at or above the Fed's target

Keep your eyes and ears open for Friday’s preliminary estimate of third quarter Gross Domestic Product.

Impecunious concerns will motivate the Federal Reserve but they might festinate.

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OFF BASE
Is bigly really a word? 

During the presidential debate, Donald Trump used the word “bigly” several times.  It seemed like he was trying to use it as an adverb of the word big to mean great sized, not huge, but definitely large.  Like his hands or so he claims.

But that’s not the correct usage of the word (unless the Donald meant violently and boastfully) if you look at a brief history of bigly.  This adverb came into use around 1400 and stuck around for roughly 500 years. It has been used two different ways over the centuries.

The first meaning was to mean “with great force or violently or strongly.” It appeared in such fashion in the classic King Arthur tale Le Morte d’Arthur, published way back in 1485: “So roughly and so bigly that none might withstand him,” wrote Sir Thomas Malory.

The second meaning, which has been more popular in recent centuries, means “boastfully, haughtily or proudly.” Thomas Hardy put it to use in his 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd: “I don’t see that I deserve to be put upon and stormed out for nothing, concluded the small woman bigly.”

Sorry about my bigly use of words.


Monday, October 3, 2016

The SBA and trichotillomania

trichotillomania
trik-uh-til-uh-MAY-nee-uh
A compulsion to pull out one's hair.

From Greek tricho- (hair) + tillein (to pluck, pull out) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze).

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TIP OF THE WEEK 

SBA is not impecunious.

The SBA began its new fiscal year October 1st with a $27 billion authorization for the SBA 7(a) loan program.  This comes after another record year for SBA 7(a) loans with SBA 7(a) loan approvals hitting just over $23 billion.

The 2017 Budget continues upfront fee waivers on 7(a) loans up to $150 thousand and provides a 50 percent fee waiver on 7(a) loans up to $500 thousand to veteran-owned businesses.

That means there should be plenty of money for SBA borrowers to buy real estate, refinance real estate, buy businesses, start businesses, refinance business debt and obtain working capital.

Last week, the House on Wednesday approved a bill to fund the federal government through December 9, averting a costly shutdown two days ahead of the deadline.   The trichotillomania was enervated.

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Indices:
PRIME RATE= 3.50%
SBA LIBOR Base Rate September 2016 =3.52%
SBA Fixed Base Rate September 2016 = 4.85%
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SBA 504 Loan Debenture Rate for September  
The debenture rate is only 2.03% but note rate is 2.066% and the effective yield is 4.082%.
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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE 

You should not have any trichotillomania over interest rates.

At its last meeting on interest rates, the Federal Reserve kept its benchmark rate at a historically low 0.4%, where it has stood since officials raised it last December for the first time in nearly a decade.  In their statement, they said “Near-term risks to the economic outlook appear roughly balanced,” its first such positive assessment this year. A similar appraisal last year was followed by a rate increase at the next meeting.

After the meeting, short-term Treasury yields rose but long-term yields fell.  A so-called flattening yield curve—describing the shape of Treasury yields moving from short-term to long-term notes—tends to occur when fixed-income investors are betting that the Fed is about to hike rates, which can lead to selling of short-term notes, the most influenced by changes in the federal-funds rate, and purchasing of longer-dated Treasuries. 

Longer term Treasuries, such as the 30 year Treasury note, are the most sensitive to long-term growth and inflation expectations. 

Keep your eyes and ears open for next week’s auction of 30 year Treasury bonds.

Here is what the 30 year Treasury bond has been doing and this week’s interesting little table:
2001- 5.49
2002- 5.43
2003- ND
2004- ND
2005- ND
2006- 4.91
2007- 4.84
2008- 4.18
2009- 3.89
2010- 4.61
2011- 2.89
2012- 2.77
2013- 3.25
2014- 3.97
2015- 2.91
2016- 2.32

What does all this mean?

I don’t know.

Last month’s auction of new 30-year Treasuries saw weak demand with the yield on the 30-year note advancing 7.3 basis points to 2.469%.  Since then the long bond’s yield has dropped to 2.32%

Impecunious concerns will motivate the Federal Reserve but they might festinate as they don’t want to be oppugned and enervate the economy.  There just might be a recrudescence hortatory with splenetic presentiment amongst ultracrepidarians after Friday’s report on jobs for the month of September.

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OFF BASE
Impecunious?  Festinate?  Oppugn?  Enervate?  Recrudescence?  Hortatory?  Splenetic?  Presentiment?  Ultracredpidarians?  If you are now feeling trichotillomanical, a three day weekend approaches!

Here are the officially recognized Federal Reserve holidays:
Columbus Day October 10
Veterans Day November 11
Thanksgiving Day November 24

Christmas Day December 26