by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 09:20:00 PM

Special Note: Because of late reporting at the FHA, this graph only includes FHA REO through February. Also see: Lawler: Monthly Report to Commissioner Suggests Serious REO Inventory Problem at FHA

The combined REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory for Fannie, Freddie and the FHA decreased to 287,184 at the end of Q1 (see FHA special note above) from a record 295,307 units at the end of Q4. The REO inventory increased 37% compared to Q1 2010 (year-over-year comparison).

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the REO inventory for Fannie, Freddie and FHA through Q1 2011 (FHA through Feb 2011).

The REO inventory for the "Fs" increased sharply in 2010, but may have peaked in Q4 2010. The pace of foreclosures is picking up, but so is the pace of REO sales. Freddie Mac noted REO sales were at record levels in Q1:

We expect the pace of our REO acquisitions to increase in the remainder of 2011, in part due to the resumption of foreclosure activity by servicers, as well as the transition of many seriously delinquent loans to REO.

REO disposition reached record levels in 1Q 2011 with over 30,000 homes sold, two-thirds of which were sold to owner occupants, or buyers who intend to live in the home.

Fannie Mae also sold a record 62,814 REO in Q1, up from 38,095 in Q1 2010 and 185,744 for all of 2010.

So Fannie and Freddie sold over 90,000 REO in Q1, and their combined inventory only declined by 16,185. The are foreclosing at record levels, but they are finally selling REOs faster than they acquire them.

This will go on for some time. From Fannie Mae:

[G]iven the large current and anticipated supply of single-family homes in the market, we anticipate that it will take years before our REO inventory is reduced to pre-2008 levels.

Also, this is just a portion of the total REO inventory. Private label securities and banks and thrifts also hold a substantial number of REOs.

As Freddie noted, the pace of foreclosures will pick up this year, and so will the pace of REO sales. This will keep pressure on house prices (see this graph from Clear Capital comparing house prices and REO saturation).

Here are the earlier employment posts (with graphs):
• April Employment Report: 244,000 Jobs, 9.0% Unemployment Rate
• Employment Summary, Part Time Workers, and Unemployed over 26 Weeks
• Employment: A dirty little secret and more graphs
• Employment Graph Gallery

by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 06:12:00 PM

Florida Bankers
Dreaming of lamps and Genie's
To wish trouble gone
by Soylent Green is People
From the FDIC: Premier American Bank, National Association, Miami, Florida, Assumes All of the Deposits of Coastal Bank, Cocoa Beach, Florida

As of March 31, 2011, Coastal Bank had approximately $129.4 million in total assets and $123.9 million in total deposits. ... The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $13.4 million. ... Coastal Bank is the 40th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the fifth in Florida.

It is Friday!

by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 03:50:00 PM

A few stories:
• Earlier today there was a rumor that Greece was considering leaving the Euro. This was based on a story in Der Spiegel. Greece has denied the report, from Reuters:

A small group of European finance ministers was meeting on Friday to discuss the euro zone debt crisis, official sources told Reuters ... "The report about Greece leaving the euro zone is untrue," [Greece's Deputy Finance Minister Filippos] Sachinidis told Reuters. "Such reports undermine Greece and the euro and serve market speculation games."

Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the group of euro zone finance ministers, also said the report was wrong. "I totally deny that there is a meeting, these reports are totally wrong," Juncker's spokesman, Guy Schuller, told Reuters by telephone.

• On consumer credit, the Federal Reserve reported:

Consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 3 percent in March, with revolving and nonrevolving credit increasing at a similar rate. In the first quarter, consumer credit also increased at an annual rate of 3 percent.

• On housing inventory from Tom Lawler:

[A]ccording to HousingTracker.net active listings in the week ended May 2nd in the Cape Coral, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa metro areas were down a combined 20.5% from a year ago. For all of the 54 metro areas tracked by HousingTracker (which combined accounted for listings of about 1.1 million), active listings were down 8.1% from a year ago.

I watch inventory closely, and I just wanted to pass that on.

by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 01:25:00 PM

First, anyone who adds (or subtracts) the Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA) birth/death model numbers from the headline SA payroll employment is clueless. Someone sent me this "analysis" today: "... you exclude the 62K from McDonalds hirings, and 175K from the Birth Death Adjustment, and end up with.... +7K jobs". That is complete nonsense. The key issue with the birth/death model is it misses turning points; otherwise it is an important part of the monthly estimate.

Second, I was reminded of a "dirty little secret" when I read Paul Krugman's column this morning. Krugman wrote about how the "D.C. economic discourse is saturated with fear" of "invisible monsters", but that no one seems to care about the very real plight of the millions of unemployed.

Actually it really isn't much of a secret that Wall Street and corporate America like the unemployment rate to be a little high. But it is "dirty" in the sense that it is unspoken. Higher unemployment keeps wage growth down, and helps with margins and earnings - and higher unemployment also keeps the Fed on the sidelines. Yes, corporations like to see job growth, so people have enough confidence to spend (and they can have a few more customers). And they definitely don't want to see Depression era unemployment - but a slowly declining unemployment rate (even at 9%) with some job growth is considered OK.

I just want to be clear: I don't think 9% unemployment is OK. It is pretty $%^# far from OK. (think Marsellus Wallace in "Pulp Fiction" for my non-G rated reaction). I'm amazed that unemployment isn't the key topic in D.C., but the unemployed don't make political contributions. (Ok, enough rant).

Here are a few more graphs based on the employment report ...

Duration of Unemployment
Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows the duration of unemployment as a percent of the civilian labor force. The graph shows the number of unemployed in four categories: less than 5 week, 6 to 14 weeks, 15 to 26 weeks, and 27 weeks or more.

In general, all four categories are trending down, althoug the "less than 5 weeks" category increased this month. Note that the "less than 5 weeks" used to be much higher, even during periods of strong job growth. This is probably because of a change in hiring practices that resulted in less turnover.

Unemployment by Education
This graph shows the unemployment rate by four levels of education (all groups are 25 years and older).

Unfortunately this data only goes back to 1992 and only includes one previous recession (the stock / tech bust in 2001). Clearly education matters with regards to the unemployment rate - and it appears all four groups are generally trending down, although all categories saw an increase in April.

Diffusion Indexes
This is a little more technical. The BLS diffusion index for total private employment was at 64.6 in April, and for manufacturing, the diffusion index increased to 65.4.

Think of this as a measure of how widespread job gains are across industries. The further from 50 (above or below), the more widespread the job losses or gains reported by the BLS. From the BLS:

Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.

The level of both indexes was a clear positive in the April employment report.

What we want is a large number of high paying jobs added each month, spread across many industries. What we got was some improvement in jobs added, although not high paying jobs - but fairly widespread.

Best to all

Here are the earlier employment posts (with graphs):
• April Employment Report: 244,000 Jobs, 9.0% Unemployment Rate
• Employment Summary, Part Time Workers, and Unemployed over 26 Weeks
• Employment Graph Gallery

by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 10:19:00 AM

A common question is why the unemployment rate increased to 9.0% even though 244 thousand payroll jobs were added? This is because the data comes from two separate surveys. The establishment survey showed a gain of 244,000 payroll jobs in April, but the household survey showed a loss of 190,000 jobs.

The number to use for jobs is the establishment survey, but the unemployment rate is based on the household survey. The two surveys can diverge over the short period, but over time it will all work out.

Here are a few more graphs based on the employment report ...

Percent Job Losses During Recessions

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms - this time aligned at the start of the recession.

In the previous post, the graph showed the job losses aligned at maximum job losses.

In terms of lost payroll jobs, the 2007 recession is by far the worst since WWII.

Part Time for Economic Reasons

From the BLS report:

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed over the month, at 8.6 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

The number of workers only able to find part time jobs (or have had their hours cut for economic reasons) increased to 8.6 million in April from 8.43 million in March.

These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 15.9% in April from 15.7% in March. This is very high.

Unemployed over 26 Weeks

This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

According to the BLS, there are 5.839 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was down from 6.122 million in March. This remains very high, and is one of the defining features of this employment recession.

Summary

This was another mixed report.

So far the economy has added 854,000 private sector jobs this year, or 213,500 per month. There have been 768,000 total non-farm jobs added this year or 192,000 per month.

This is a much better pace of payroll job creation than last year, but the economy still has 6.955 million fewer payroll jobs than at the beginning of the 2007 recession. At this pace, it will take 3 years just to get back to the pre-recession level, or sometime in 2014! Considering the depth of the recession, this remains a sluggish jobs recovery (not unexpected following a financial crisis).

This pace of job growth is just more than enough to keep up with the growth in the labor force, so it will only push down the unemployment rate slowly. The unemployment rate has declined from 9.4% in December 2010 to 9.0% in April.

The increase in the unemployment rate from 8.8% to 9.0% in April, was bad news, especially since the participation rate was unchanged at 64.2%. Note: This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. I expect the participation rate to move a little higher as the job market improves, and that will keep the unemployment rate elevated all year.

The increase in the the number of part time workers for economic reasons, and the increase in U-6 to 15.9% were more bad news. There are a total of 13.75 million Americans unemployed.

The average workweek was unchanged at 34.3 hours, and average hourly earnings increased slightly.

Overall this was another small step in the right direction for payroll jobs, but this report reminds us that unemployment and underemployment are critical problems in the U.S.

• Earlier Employment post: April Employment Report: 244,000 Jobs, 9.0% Unemployment Rate

by Calculated Risk on 5/06/2011 08:30:00 AM

From the BLS:

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 244,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in several service-providing industries, manufacturing, and mining.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from +194,000 to +235,000, and the change for March was revised from +216,000 to +221,000.

The following graph shows the employment population ratio, the participation rate, and the unemployment rate.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

The unemployment rate increased to 9.0% (red line).

The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged at 64.2% in April (blue line). This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. The participation rate is well below the 66% to 67% rate that was normal over the last 20 years, although some of the decline is due to the aging population.

The Employment-Population ratio decreased slightly to 58.4% in April (black line).

The second graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms aligned at maximum job losses. The dotted line is ex-Census hiring.

The current employment recession is by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms, and 2nd worst in terms of the unemployment rate (only the early '80s recession with a peak of 10.8 percent was worse).

This was above expectations for payroll jobs, and below expectations for the unemployment rate. I'll have much more soon ...