Daily Treasury Statement

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 8/29/2014 was $17.5B bringing the August 2014 Deficit to $155B for the full month compared to $173B last year.

You may recall…I was forecasting a huge deficit for Friday, and I suppose $17.5B is a pretty big number, but I was looking for something in the $30-$35B range. In a typical month, a large Medicare payment of about $18B goes out early in the month, but I with the holiday on 9/1, I assumed it would be paid on the last day of August like it was last year. For whatever reason…it didn’t….I’m sure we will see it 9/2….

If you ignore this timing event, August 2013 and August 2014 were pretty much the same….with marginal revenues gains being cancelled out by an increase in outlays.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 8/28/2014 was $6.5B, following Wednesday’s $12.2B deficit. and bringing the August 2014 deficit to $137B with one business day remaining.

2014 and 2013 remain pretty much neck and neck with a huge deficit on deck for Friday. Odds are they will stay pretty close, but you never know. revenues are sitting at only +1.2%…..we are hoping for closer to +5%, which looks unlikely. However….part of that is the missing business day….which we will catch up next month.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 8/26/2014 was $4.8B bringing the August 2014 deficit through 26 days to $119B with three business days left.

We are still pretty much all tied up with 2013. Tomorrow will post a ~$10B deficit with the last round of SS payments, Thursday will likely post a ~$2B deficit, and Friday looks like it will come in ~$35B or so…putting us somewhere between $160B and $170B for the month.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Friday 8/22/2014 was $0.6B bringing the August 2014 Deficit through 22 days to $119B.

We have five days left in the month..enough time for some movement, but absent any large surprised (like maybe the $17B BoA settlement) we appear to be on track for $160-$170B deficit…just like last year.  It’s still too early to say for sure….but it’s starting to look like the deficit has more or less hit a plateau at the $500-$600B level.

Above we have a chart of the TTM deficit from 2006 to present. You see it chugging along at $200B or so (the good ‘ol days) before spiking up to $1.8T….and then improving more or less for 5 years now. …until April-2014. Clearly anything can happen…but it would be a lot better to hit a plateau back around $200B….