Category

Daily Deficit

Feb 13
0

US Daily Cash Deficit 2/12/2014

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Wednesday 2/12/2014 was $30.4B driven primarily by $22B of tax refunds…blowing away last year’s comparable at only $12B….and pushing 2014 refunds over 2013 by $7B…admittedly with a lot of time left.

2014-02-12 USDD

So far, not much about this month has been predictable, so I won’t try to read much into one day, but if refunds continue at this pace….it’s going to wipe out a lot of revenue gains. In my model I have refunds forecasted to grow 2%….right now we’re at +14% despite a really slow start. Last year tax refunds bounced around before peaking Wednesday 2/27 at $14B and tapering off well into April.

Feb 12
0

US Daily Cash Deficit 2/11/2014

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Tuesday 2/11/2014 was $8.5B pushing the February 2014 cash deficit to $46B through 11 days.

2014-02-11 USDD

Refunds looked normal for a change at $4.8B…right in line with last year. Deficit wise, really nothing to see… However…we see more fun “Extraordinary Measures” games that are probably worth pointing out. We see $50.9B of new debt issued. against only $900M of redemptions, leading my calculator to assure me public debt outstanding has increased $50B. And yet…somehow, magically, public debt outstanding has actually decreased by $4.7B. The cash, on the other hand is not imaginary, increasing $42B for the day. That’s a $55B magic trick ladies and gentlemen…feel free to give Lew a round of applause 🙂 .

With the senate now passing the debt limit suspension, we will probably see these shenanigans reversed and the debt pulled back on the balance sheet in the next few days, depending on when the President gets around to signing it. Oh well..it was fun while it lasted.

Feb 11
0

US Daily Cash Deficit 2/10/2014

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Monday 2/10/2014 was $12.8B pushing the February 2014 cash deficit to $37B through 10 days.

2014-02-10 USDD

Of note…Treasury seems to have remembered how to pay tax refunds…pushing out nearly $19B, and bringing the YOY shortfall down to only $4B.

Also interesting…we can clearly see “extraordinary measures” at work on the DTS. New public debt issues of $885M, offset by public debt redemptions of $926. So…simple math, one would probably expect public debt outstanding to decrease about $41M right???

Nope…somehow, magically, public debt outstanding plunged $3.73B….from $12.280T to $12.276T. Where did it go?? Essentially…it was taken off of the balance sheet and put in a jar with the rest of the off balance sheet IOU’s…so Treasury could pretend it didn’t exist….and therefore not go over the debt limit when they booked the also fake IOU’s to the SS trust fund (intragovernmental debt rose $3.7B). Of course, when the debt limit is raised… these liabilities come out of the jar, and back on the balance sheet.

Summary: In one fell swoop refunds are more or less back in line with last year and net revenues are looking flat, but with a lot of time left to reach that +10% mark…. Outlays look weak at -$45B, but should make up a lot of this by month end as timing is the key driver here. All eyes on revenue and refunds for the rest of the month.

 

Feb 10
0

US Daily Cash Deficit 2/7/2014

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Friday 2/7/2014 was $1.5B bringing the February 2014 deficit through 1 week to $24B.

2014-02-07 USDD

Refunds continue to be extremely low. Last year,  on Friday 2/8/2013 $8.8B of tax refund payments were made to individuals. Friday 2/7/2014… only $270M. Through 1 week, $18B less refunds have gone out vs last year….that can’t be good for retailers..

Cash ended at $34B on the day the debt limit was put back into force at $17.212T. So in theory, we can run a deficit of $34B….plus whatever Lew can squeeze out of “Extraordinary Measures…over the next 17 days. Last year, the deficit over that period was $144B, but given the sporadic refund payments we’ve seen, I don’t know whether to expect a surge as they catch up, or a permanent deficiency. Stay tuned…

Feb 07
0

US Daily Cash Deficit 2/6/2014

By | Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for Thursday 2/6/2014 was $14.9B as refund checks finally started being paid….just a few days later than last year.

2014-02-06 USDD

You may be wondering….how do you book -$7B of revenue??? Well…I net out refunds from revenues rather than counting them as outlays (which would double count). So we had about $5B of regular revenues, and almost $12B of refunds….bringing us to about -$7B for the day. This does help to catch us up YOY…the gap was at $16B yesterday, but has narrowed to $10B.

Perhaps of note….cash plummeted $42B on the deficit and a~$26B net pay down of debt, ending up at $36B with just one day to go before the debt limit is frozen. Of course…if we hit the debt limit with $2T in cash….we wouldn’t have a problem for perhaps a few years…..generally speaking the more cash in hand  2/7…the longer they will be able to make it before “default day”. However, as I noted yesterday, I actually think it is in Obama’s best interest to minimize the number of days before we hit the D-DAY….forcing the republicans rather weak hand sooner, and getting this game over rather than letting it be drawn out. In the big picture, I suppose it really doesn’t matter:)

 

**Looks like Lew has penciled in Thursday 2/27 as D-Day….which makes sense since 2/28 will likely have a large ($30B-$40B) deficit as once again payments due Saturday 3/1 will get pulled forward into February since 3/1 is not a business day.