The US Daily Cash deficit for 5/29/2013 was $1.9B bringing the May 2013 Deficit through 29 days to $120B, just $4B under May 2012 through 29 days. Revenue is up 6% and outlays are up 2% with 2 business days remaining.
With the deficit, cash is back down to $14B from $16B yesterday with somewhere between $30B and $50B of outlays due to go out Friday.
Deficit:
The US Daily Cash Deficit for 5/24/2013 was $4.4B bringing the May 2013 deficit through 24 days to $122B bringing 2012 and 2013 into a virtual tie with four business days remaining. My baseline expectation is for 2013 revenue to grow by 12% and cost to be flat. but with four business days remaining in May, we see revenue up only 6%, with cost up 3%. I expect revenue to continue gaining ground over the final 4 days due to favorable timing. Cost is a bit of a surprise, but what’s a % or two? Expect a moderate surplus Tuesday followed by moderate deficits Wednesday and Thursday…Friday should be a large deficit…how large we will have to wait and see.
Debt Limit/Cash Crash:
Cash fell another 4B down to $12B…quite a plunge from the 4/30 balance of $214B. No evidence of extraordinary measures yet, but expect it soon. Over the weekend I did some research and took a look at the last few debt limit battles. I discovered multiple instances of large single day cash infusions from “extraordinary measures” including $55B on 5/31/2011 and another $55B more recently on 1/31/2013. So…there is evidence that treasury can and will pull $50B or so out of its magic hat in time to avoid a default on the large cash draws expected 5/31 and 6/3. Hooray for Treasury….and their shady accountants!! Assuming we get through this gauntlet…and I think we have to assume that…expect moderate deficits throughout early June, with revenues seeing a sharp uptick around mid month. I have seen multiple articles say that the $60B Fannie infusion will be paid before 6/30….so if that pushes through, June could technically post a surplus in the $100B ballpark. Again…hooray for the shady government accountants!!
So far…no sign of extraordinary measures, but if they don’t do something soon, there is no way they have the cash in hand next Friday to pay the bills. Between now and 6/3….they better find about $50B somewhere, or Congress’s summer vacation is going to be ruined. Of course…that makes me fairly confident they will pull it off, but as discussed yesterday, the fact that they are cutting it this close is very confusing to me.
The US Cash Deficit for 5/21/2013 was $5.2B bringing the May 2013 deficit through 21 days to $103B. Once again, 2012 and 2013 are more or less aligned, with each having 15 business days M-F. Just as last week…nothing very impressive here. Revenue up 1%, cost up 2%. All this is a far cry from what we saw last month with revenues spiking 26%. We do see tax deposits withheld up 10%, consistent with what we have been seeing all year, but this has been offset by decreases elsewhere, notably unemployment deposits from the states, federal reserve earning, and TARP. With 7 business days remaining, May is looking like a rather unimpressive follow up to a spectacular April.
On the Debt limit, cash was down $6B to $31B. No sign of “extraordinary measures” yet…just a dwindling cash balance and a lot of payments due by May 31.