Lunes 18/09/17 Indice del precio de las casas

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El stock market sigue subiendo, batiendo récords nuevos.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rkets-wrap

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Hurricane Maria intensifies into Category 3 storm
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/hurrica ... -days.html

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Stocks hit record highs after big defense deal; Street awaits Fed meeting
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/18/us-stoc ... throp.html

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http://lta.reuters.com/article/business ... T1L0-OUSLB

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http://lta.reuters.com/article/worldNew ... T17Z-OUSLW

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22348.07 79.73 0.36%
Nasdaq 6475.91 27.44 0.43%
S&P 500 2506.70 6.47 0.26%
Russell 2000 1440.32 8.61 0.60%
Global Dow 2896.65 6.51 0.23%
Japan: Nikkei 225 19909.50 102.06 0.52%
Stoxx Europe 600 381.74 1.03 0.27%
UK: FTSE 100 7255.48 40.01 0.55%
CURRENCIES11:41 AM EDT 9/18/2017
LAST(MID) CHANGE
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.1953 0.0007
Yen (USD/JPY) 111.52 0.68
Pound (GBP/USD) 1.3521 -0.0071
Australia $ (AUD/USD) 0.7969 -0.0032
Swiss Franc (USD/CHF) 0.9609 0.0012
WSJ Dollar Index 85.32 0.25
GOVERNMENT BONDS11:40 AM EDT 9/18/2017
PRICE CHG YIELD
U.S. 10 Year -6/32 2.227
German 10 Year -7/32 0.458
Japan 10 Year 6/32 0.022
FUTURES11:31 AM EDT 9/18/2017
LAST CHANGE % CHG
Crude Oil 49.22 -0.67 -1.34%
Brent Crude 54.87 -0.75 -1.35%
Gold 1310.7 -14.5 -1.09%
Silver 17.255 -0.446 -2.52%
E-mini DJIA 22310 91 0.41%
E-mini S&P 500 2504.75

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Peru +0.03%
http://www.bvl.com.pe

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CHANGE % CHG
DJIA 22346.24 77.90 0.35%
Nasdaq 6475.42 26.96 0.42%
S&P 500 2505.96 5.73 0.23%
Russell 2000 1440.06 8.35 0.58%
Global Dow 2894.33 4.19 0.14%
Japan: Nikkei 225 19909.50

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22332.08 63.74 0.29%
Nasdaq 6453.28 4.81 0.07%
S&P 500 2502.02 1.79 0.07%
Russell 2000 1444.12 12.41 0.87%
Global Dow 2892.56 2.42 0.08%
Japan: Nikkei 225 19909.50 102.06 0.52%
Stoxx Europe 600 381.95 1.24 0.33%
UK: FTSE 100 7253.28 37.81 0.52%
CURRENCIES2:25 PM EDT 9/18/2017
LAST(MID) CHANGE
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.1934 -0.0012
Yen (USD/JPY) 111.57 0.74
Pound (GBP/USD) 1.3481 -0.0111
Australia $ (AUD/USD) 0.7946 -0.0055
Swiss Franc (USD/CHF) 0.9624 0.0027
WSJ Dollar Index 85.47 0.40
GOVERNMENT BONDS2:25 PM EDT 9/18/2017
PRICE CHG YIELD
U.S. 10 Year -8/32 2.232
German 10 Year -7/32 0.456
Japan 10 Year 6/32 0.022
FUTURES2:15 PM EDT 9/18/2017
LAST CHANGE % CHG
Crude Oil 49.90 0.01 0.02%
Brent Crude 55.50 -0.12 -0.22%
Gold 1308.6 -16.6 -1.25%
Silver 17.145 -0.556 -3.14%
E-mini DJIA 22296 77 0.35%
E-mini S&P 500

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http://lta.reuters.com/article/business ... T276-OUSLB

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The Fed, a Decade After the Crisis, Is About to Embark on the Great Unwinding

After a historic buildup of its bond portfolio to support the U.S. economy, the central bank plans to shrink its holdings, entering uncharted territory

Nick TimiraosSept. 18, 2017 11:00 a.m. ET
By
Nick Timiraos
WASHINGTON—The Federal Reserve resorted to a series of shock-and-awe stimulus campaigns to stabilize the economy after the financial crisis. Now the Fed is preparing the final move to unwind its support—and it wants to be as boring as possible.

The central bank is likely to announce Wednesday it will start slowly shrinking its $4.2 trillion portfolio of mortgage and Treasury bonds purchased during and after the financial crisis. It will do so passively by allowing some bonds to mature without replacing them.

The markets haven’t blinked at Fed signals for many months that this moment was nearing. But plenty could still go wrong. The central bank has never before had such a large balance sheet or attempted to do this.

If it succeeds, the central bank will quietly close a chapter on an extraordinary policy experiment that lowered borrowing costs for homeowners, businesses and consumers, and will provide a model for other central banks that followed suit. A misstep could disrupt growth at a time when major economies are finally expanding in sync.

Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s management of the process will shape the final verdict on whether the bond-buying was successful, which in turn could determine whether it remains a policy tool for future downturns.

“She has reached agreement in a way that is really impressive. Markets didn’t freak out. Nobody said ‘boo,’ ” said Austan Goolsbee, who headed the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2010-2011. Now, he said, “The final exam, with the grade yet to be determined, is can the Fed actually get out of this stuff.”

Other central banks that adopted such programs are watching, particularly the European Central Bank, which is considering whether to wind down its asset purchases next year.

When central bankers began these unconventional campaigns, “we had no idea what we should buy, how much, for how long,” said David Blanchflower, a Dartmouth College economist who was on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee from 2006 to 2009. Similarly, “there is no idea on the way going out.”

Markets’ ho-hum reaction so far prompted J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s James Dimon to warn this summer against complacency. The Fed’s unwind “could be a little more disruptive than people think,” the CEO said at a conference in Paris. With other central banks set to pull back on stimulus, “the tide is going out.”

Added Matthew Jozoff, J.P. Morgan’s mortgage-debt strategist: “We have never seen a central bank exit out of $1 trillion of mortgage-backed securities, so we are concerned about how this is going to go.”

What could go wrong is hard to predict. When the Fed discussed plans to pare its purchases of new bonds in 2013, a tumble in prices sent yields soaring, in what was called the taper tantrum. The unanticipated turmoil included capital outflows from emerging markets. Fed officials’ desire to avoid a replay has driven careful planning for the balance-sheet wind-down, according to current and former Fed officials.

The Fed launched its bond buying in late 2008, at the depth of the financial crisis, to shore up money-market funds, companies and banks.

A government takeover of housing-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had failed to thaw the mortgage market. So the Fed began buying hundreds of billions of dollars of their debt and mortgage-backed securities to get mortgage rates down. Rates fall as bond prices rise.

“Imagine in your neighborhood no one is buying houses, and all of sudden someone buys 50% of the houses for sale. That is going to stabilize prices,” said David Spector, chief executive of mortgage originator PennyMac Financial Services Inc.

The Fed later decided it needed to do more to support the economic recovery, and over the next three years it launched two other bond-buying rounds to lower long-term interest rates and keep inflation from going below zero.

September 2008, Ben Bernanke, then Fed chairman, and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with congressional leaders
September 2008, Ben Bernanke, then Fed chairman, and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with congressional leaders Photo: DAVID BRODY/Bloomberg News

Buying long-term bonds sends some investors into riskier assets, buoying stocks, corporate bonds and real estate. Ultralow interest rates allowed millions of Americans to refinance, reducing foreclosures and freeing up cash for spending.

“They saw an effect similar to a tax cut,” said Mr. Spector of PennyMac.

Problems some critics warned about, such as roaring inflation and currency debasement, haven’t materialized. Labor markets have tightened, dropping unemployment to a 16-year low in July, while price pressures have been muted.

At the same time, the bond-buying has fueled concerns about frothy asset values, such as in commercial real estate. And while financial markets have boomed, economic growth and business investment have been unspectacular

Research published by the Fed in April estimated its purchases have reduced by around 1 percentage point what economists call a “term premium,” the extra yield investors demand for the risk of lending over a longer term.

Fed economists estimated this stimulus would decline slightly this year as markets anticipate the end of bond reinvestments. When the Fed’s balance sheet returns to a more normal level, the term premium could still be around 0.25 percentage point lower than if the bond programs had never occurred.

The Fed, though it stopped adding to its holdings of bonds in 2014, has continued to reinvest the proceeds of those that mature. It owns $1.7 trillion in mortgage bonds issued by government-related entities, or around 29% of the market, and around $2.4 trillion in Treasurys, which is 17% of that market.

In June, the Fed said when it started to shrink its balance sheet it would do so by allowing a small initial amount of bonds—$4 billion of mortgages and $6 billion in Treasurys per month—to run off the portfolio without reinvestment. Every quarter, it will let a slightly larger amount do so, up to a maximum of $20 billion in mortgages and $30 billion in Treasurys per month.

For the next year or so, the Fed should still end up buying bonds in most months, since only a small fraction will mature and go not replaced, said Richard Clarida, an economist at Pacific Investment Management Co., or Pimco. He compared the start of the plan to losing weight by eating only two desserts a day instead of three.

One question the central bank hasn’t yet decided: How large should its balance sheet be at the end of the process?

Its holdings have swelled to $4.5 trillion from less than $900 billion before 2008. Though they will fall, the Fed will end up with more assets than it had before the crisis because its liabilities have grown—there’s more currency in circulation. The balance sheet size could settle out at between $2.4 trillion and $3.5 trillion sometime early next decade, New York Fed President William Dudley said in a speech earlier this month.

That would mean the Fed would end up selling only around $1 trillion to $2 trillion in securities after having added $3.7 trillion between 2008 and 2014.

One reason markets have been relatively unfazed is that central banks in Europe and Japan are still purchasing assets. Mr. Spector of PennyMac expects the start of the Fed’s unwinding to have little effect on mortgage rates, which in early September hit their lowest levels of the year.

The Fed wants to move now because the economy is on stronger footing. Its large holdings have become a political liability, with critics saying the mortgage-debt buying, in particular, exceeded the Fed’s mandate once normal market functioning had been restored.

Central bankers are “comfortable with the extraordinary actions they took during the crisis, and they know not everybody is,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at financial research firm Wrightson ICAP. “If the unwind is successful, it will bolster the case for” similar bond buying in the future.

Hanging over the discussions has been the question of who will lead the Fed next year. Ms. Yellen’s term expires in February, and Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer is giving up his seat. There are three other vacancies on the seven-seat board of governors.

By reaching unanimous agreement on the balance-sheet plan this year, the Fed has essentially resolved the issue for any Yellen successor and given more certainty to markets, just as Ben Bernanke in 2013 announced plans to gradually reduce the Fed’s purchases before his term as chairman ended in 2014.

The balance-sheet plan bears hallmarks of Ms. Yellen’s meticulous, leave-nothing-to-chance leadership, say current and former Fed officials. The core of it came together three years ago. Officials said they would raise the federal-funds rate before starting on the balance sheet, and wouldn’t be bond sellers.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi at Jackson Hole in August Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News

The rate-setting committee ramped up discussions at its March 2017 meeting, weighing questions such as whether to set a fixed calendar or to condition a wind-down on economic conditions; the pros and cons of a phasing out of reinvestments vs. stopping cold turkey; and whether to treat mortgage bonds and Treasurys differently.

After the March discussion, a majority—around 10 of the committee’s 17 members—appeared to form a consensus: The Fed’s plans should be predictable and passive. Tapering the pace of bond reinvestments would extend the process by a year, reducing the chance of spike in bond yields.

It should be as exciting as watching paint dry, Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker later said.

In regular calls and meetings to gain more feedback from committee members after the March meeting, Ms. Yellen gently highlighted the growing consensus to those who had different ideas.

Meantime, when minutes of the meeting revealed details of the discussion, markets shrugged, helping to move off the fence some who worried about acting too soon. By the Fed’s June meeting, officials who were uneasy about moving ahead with rate increases voiced little concern about starting the balance-sheet plan, largely because it was so gradual.

“We won’t know until we actually take the action, but I’m reasonably confident that it’s not likely to be much of an event,” said Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren. “We communicated it better this time.”

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California Democrats Target Tesla

In the Golden State, the left loves unions even more than electric cars.

The Editorial Board
Updated Sept. 18, 2017 8:58 a.m. ET
Workers at the Fremont Factory in Fremont, Calif., in May 2012.
Workers at the Fremont Factory in Fremont, Calif., in May 2012. Photo: Tesla/European Pressphoto Agency

By
The Editorial Board
California Democrats have finally found a cause that’s worth suspending their environmental passions. The United Automobile Workers are struggling for a presence in Tesla’s Fremont plant, and organized labor has called in a political favor.

Since 2010 California has offered a $2,500 rebate to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles. But last week, at unions’ behest, Democrats introduced an amendment to cap-and-trade spending legislation that would require participating manufacturers to get a sign-off from the state labor secretary verifying that they are “fair and responsible in their treatment of workers.”

The legislation, which passed Friday, is a direct shot at Tesla. The Clean Vehicle Rebate Project has amounted to a $82.5 million subsidy for the company, giving extra incentive to 32,842 Tesla buyers in seven years.

Tesla’s sales have been built with taxpayer support. When Hong Kong cut back its electric-vehicle tax credits earlier this year, Tesla sales dropped to zero in April from nearly 3,000 the month earlier. And when Denmark scaled back incentives last year, electric-car sales plummeted by 70%.

The labor secretary in California is hand-picked by unions and their Democratic allies, and last month the UAW and a few auto workers filed a complaint against Tesla with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging unfair labor practices.

But the plant’s employees are doubtless aware of the union’s abysmal record in Fremont, which stretches back decades. In the early 1980s, the union’s control was so complete that General Motors couldn’t fire even workers who drank, used drugs and had sex at the Fremont plant. Roughly one in five workers failed to show up on any given day. The plant closed in 1982—no surprise. Auto workers got a second shot with a GM-Toyota joint venture, but that was shuttered in 2010.

A record of closures and corruption contributed to the UAW’s defeat last month at a Mississippi Nissan plant, where workers voted nearly two-to-one against the union. Organized labor needs political coercion because it can’t win over workers on its own. As for electric cars and green subsidies, what progressive politicians give away with one hand they want to redistribute with another.

Correction: An earlier version misidentified the nickname for California.

Appeared in the September 18, 2017, print edition.

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LAST CHANGE % CHG
DJIA 22331.35 63.01 0.28%
Nasdaq 6454.64 6.17 0.10%
S&P 500 2503.87 3.64 0.15%
Russell 2000 1441.08 9.37 0.65%
Global Dow 2903.19 7.12 0.25%
Japan: Nikkei 225 20299.38 389.88 1.96%
Stoxx Europe 600 381.57 -0.38 -0.10%
UK: FTSE 100 7277.37 24.09 0.33%
CURRENCIES6:42 AM EDT 9/19/2017
LAST(MID) CHANGE
Euro (EUR/USD) 1.1986 0.0032
Yen (USD/JPY) 111.66 0.09
Pound (GBP/USD) 1.3498 0.0004
Australia $ (AUD/USD) 0.7997 0.0036
Swiss Franc (USD/CHF) 0.9630 0.0013
WSJ Dollar Index 85.32 -0.07
GOVERNMENT BONDS6:42 AM EDT 9/19/2017
PRICE CHG YIELD
U.S. 10 Year 1/32 2.225
German 10 Year -1/32 0.457
Japan 10 Year -3/32 0.030
FUTURES6:32 AM EDT 9/19/2017
LAST CHANGE % CHG
Crude Oil 50.34 0.43 0.86%
Brent Crude 55.78 0.30 0.54%
Gold 1312.1 1.3 0.10%
Silver 17.225 0.069 0.40%
E-mini DJIA 22317 18 0.08%
E-mini S&P 500