Tag

Daily Treasury Statement

Mar 15
0

3/13/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Cash Deficit for 3/13/2013 was $13.7B bringing the March Deficit through 13 days to $86B.

2013-03-13 USDD

This is getting interesting…13 days in, and 2013 has a $23B higher deficit, including $16B in lower revenues? At first I thought maybe I had a data error…but no…the numbers are correct, I just overlooked one more revenue source from last year…TARP…that has fallen off a cliff. Last year, through 13 days, Tarp had pulled in about $12B of cash. 2013…only $1B. So between TARP, the GSE MBS Income, and increased tax refunds (delayed from February), that’s about $30B of negative YOY revenue variances….offset by about $14B of higher tax deposits thanks to the tax increases and higher employment. We can chalk most of the higher cost up to timing of SS payments….that will sync back up tomorrow.
I won’t say it is likely yet, but it is certainly looking possible that the 3 month streak of YOY improvement gets broken, even with some favorable cost variances at the end of the month. The variables to keep an eye on are tax refunds and tax deposits…If we continue to see improvement in tax deposits, including corporate taxes we’ll see by next week, the streak could hold on for another month. If, however, tax refunds continue to outpace last year, growing from $10B delta to $20-$30B…that’s going to be tough to overcome.

 

Mar 14
0

3/12/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Cash Deficit for 3/12/2013 was $7.1B bringing the March Deficit through 12 days to $73B.

2013-03-12 USDD

Hmm… As expected, the GSE MBS Purchase Program Income payment of $10B counted in 2012 revenue has not come through again for 2013, resulting an a pretty big swing from yesterday’s YOY. Other than that, the two years are about as aligned as they are going to be until the end. Costs are flat and excluding the GSE income, we are pretty flat on revenue….increases in tax revenues are being offset by increased refunds. I am still expecting a YOY improvement…March 2012 had about $25B of April Payments pulled into 3/31 due to the way the weekend fell….2013 will not have this issue…those payments will go out 4/1, resulting in a favorable YOY timing issue that will work itself out in April. We still have a lot of days left in March, but through 12 days, we definitely are not seeing huge improvements YOY, or any improvement….which is going to be necessary if we are ever going to  materially break through this $1T per year deficit paradigm.
Mar 12
0

3/08/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Cash Deficit for 3/8/2013 was $3.0B, bringing the March Deficit through 8 days to $69B.

2013-03-08 USDD

No material breakout on either revenues or costs yet, 3/2013 looks a whole lot like 3/2012 so far. Corporate income taxes come due the 15th, which will provide a spike in revenues in the $30B range…the YOY comparison will provide an interesting gauge for what kind of revenue growth we are seeing. Also interesting, last year, on 3/12/2012, we received a $10B payment of GSE MBS Purchase Program Income. I don’t know exactly what that was, but it would not surprise me if we don’t see it this year. If we don’t, it is going to put a $10B dent in revenues and wipe out about half of the revenue gains we are expecting from the tax increases. $139B is still looking like a valid deficit forecast for now, I’d say +/-20B, but leaning to – due to some end of month timing issues I had overlooked in the initial forecast.
Mar 08
0

3/06/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Cash Deficit for 3/6/2013 was $3.8B, bringing the six day total to $60B. Timing is still an issue, but through 4 business days, revenues are definitely running higher than 3/2012…I will be keeping an eye on them throughout the month…especially the corporate tax payments that should hit 3/15.

 

2013-03-06 USDD

Mar 02
0

2/28/2013 Daily US Cash Deficit

By | Daily Deficit
The US Daily Cash Deficit for 2/28/2013 was $8.6B bringing the February 2013 deficit to $229B, a $20B improvement over February 2012. This was fairly close to my guestimate of $225B, so nothing really unexpected here, but I will note that total revenues unadjusted for refunds were flat after a 9% year on year (YOY) increase in January. There were increases in taxes withheld of about 5%, but this was offset by reductions elsewhere. Now part of this is likely due to the extra business day last year, which is also likely the cause in a slight reduction in YOY outlays, but it is still a surprise to me because I expected the tax increases to more than make up for the lost business day, but that clearly was not the case. Of the $15B revenue increase we see in the charts below, every cent of it can be attributed to a delay in refunds, which were down $15B from $129B last year to $114B in 2013. Now, it is entirely possible that tax refunds will just be less in 2013, that would not be unprecedented. But if not, we should see these in March and April. The cumulative difference through 2 months is about $23B, so we will continue to keep an eye on that.
I will do a larger recap over the weekend, but wanted to get this out today. Looking forward to March, last year we ran a $139B deficit, which sounds like a pretty good estimate to me. That assumes this month’s flat revenues were a fluke and that we will see revenue gains in the $15B range…offset by about $15B increase in tax refunds as the IRS catches up with the delays we have seen to date. Not expecting any sequester effect….is that still happening??…but I will keep an eye out for it.

2013-02-28 USDD