copernicus

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 6/30/2014 was $16.2B, following Friday’s $1.5B surplus, and bringing the June 2014 deficit for the full month to $78B for the month.

As you can see… June 2014 surplus falls $38B short of last year with the primary culprit being last June had a special Fannie Mae dividend that pushed total GSE revenues to $66B….compared to only $10B this month. Now, I never expected anything close to last year, but last quarter GSE revenues came in at $18B…so $10B is quite short of expectations. I don’t know if this was a one off, or if the Fannie/Freddie Gravy train is drying up….we’ll know more 9/30 when the next payment is scheduled.

But that aside…the truth is that revenues blew away my expectations… admittedly lowered by 2 months of 1% growth. Taxes withheld were up 13%, taxes not withheld were up 13%, and corporate taxes were up 11%. Some of this was no doubt due to an extra business day and favorable timing, but not all of it. It will be interesting to see how July holds up….as it has a bit of unfavorable timing, though business days stay the same. Anything over 5% would be ok in my book.

Outlays surge at +18B…or +7%. However, $12B of that is timing of interest payments….other than that there are ups and downs across the board, but one really sticks out. Medicaid…up 26% from $21.1B to $26.6B….I would guess driven by Obamacare. For the year…Medicaid is up 14% and +$18B. Lucky for us…all those states decided not to expand Medicaid (yet) or this could be accelerating even faster.

At the end of the day….it was a good month. Revenues handily beat expectations and at least temporarily put to rest the fear that revenues were about to collapse after 2 months of 1% growth. Outlays were up, and while a good chunk of it was timing, it does appear that we are on the cusp of returning to a growth in outlays …over all say 1-3%…but we’re not there yet.

Hopefully more in depth analysis at  later date, but for now…on to July.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 6/26/2014 was $4.3B bringing the June 2014 surplus to $61B with 2 business days remaining.

We’ve enjoyed an almost perfectly synced up 2013 vs. 2014 for just about the whole month, but with GSE dividends incoming, and an extra business day for 2014, we are about to see some major divergences over the next 2 days….meaning that the above chart… comparing 6/1/2013-6/27/2013 against 6/1/2014-6/26/2014 is pretty much the closest YOY comparison we are going to get.

Revenues are up $18B so far good for a 6% YOY gain. Our base….taxes withheld from paychecks is solid at +5% so far…not the +10% we saw all last year, but a big improvement over the +1% we saw between April and May. If I were Obama…I’d take +5% all day long. Taxes not withheld are up $6B for an impressive 12% gain. Corporate taxes are also up $6B…good for a 10% gain. I won’t know for sure until the month ends, but I’m guessing that there are some “Other” revenue streams down pulling down the average.

On the outlay side, they are sitting at +$9B, a 4% gain, though $6B of this is due to May interest payments slipping into June. Still….a gain….largely driven by SS, Medicare, and Medicaid which combined look like ~+$12B…with Medicaid being the largest gain….more on that when we get the finals.

The surplus…now at $61B, will likely grow from here as GSE dividends are received Monday, probably pushing us into the ballpark of $80B. We’ll know by Tuesday afternoon where this all ends up, but for now…June looks to be an ok month with the main plus being that the extremely disappointing revenue gains we saw over April and May did not hit a 3 month streak. Outlays look to end up….perhaps marking the beginning of a trend, but it will be many moons before we can confirm that.

Chart Only today…deficit was $9.2B

Enjoy!!

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 6/24/2014 was $3.0B bringing the June 2014 Surplus through 24 days to $74B.

Revenues up a bit, outlays down a bit, adding up to a $1B gain for 2014 over 2013. There are only 4 business days remaining in the month, but still some uncertainty about exactly where the surplus will end up. I am expecting$10-15B of deficit over the next 3 days, offset by a sizable surplus Monday….I just don’t know how big…it will likely be between $15-$25B. So…I guess $somewhere between a $70B surplus and a $90B surplus….let’s just call it $80B, compared to last June’s $116B surplus.

Still…some solid revenue numbers have been put up so far. Withheld taxes are up by 5.5%, Corporate taxes are up 8.5%, and taxes not withheld are up 12.6%, and all will get a bump Monday from the extra business day, putting +10% within reach for all…though overall revenues will be down due to Fannie Mae’s June 2013 accounting gain distribution. Then…it’s on to July….where maybe we’ll find out whether the anomaly was April/May at 1% revenue growth…..or June at ~10%…. Or maybe July will just split the difference and leave me confused for a few more quarters.