Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Tuesday 1/21/2014 was $11.8B…surpassing Tuesday 1/22/2013’s $10B surplus by $1.8B. Revenues were up $1.1B, outlays were down $0.7B.

We are still expecting a big revenue show tomorrow that could push the month in either direction, but for now…revenues have pulled to even.  Last January, revenues ended up at $289B…so for a 6% YOY gain we would need to get to $306B…a $17B gain. So…is a $17B gain in the next 8 business days possible? It appears to be quite achievable. First off, due to how we synced the days up…we get an extra day at the end…that should be good for ~$10B….meaning all we need is about $1B per day to get there. Nothing about that seems unrealistic…a big beat tomorrow could make it a cakewalk…a miss could make it a bit tougher.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Friday 1/17/2014 was $0.7B bringing the January deficit through 17 days to $20B.

For the day, Revenue was down $1.5B, including a $1B reduction in Taxes not withheld….from $5.2B Friday 1/18/2013 to $4.2B Friday 1/17/2014. It could be nothing…the big day to watch will be Wednesday…last year Wednesday 1/23/2013 pulled in $18.5B…

Outlays continue to fall…this time another $2.5B YOY bringing the total to $-21B. As we’ve discussed, probably $10B of that is just 2013’s additional day. The rest…it’s not real clear…a lot of it seems to be “other”…like the $1.6B IMF payment in 2013 that we haven’t seen in 2014, and other small things like Federal Crop insurance running about $1B lower than last year. I guess we can thank the beautiful weather?

The US Daily Cash Surplus for 1/16/2014 was $5.4B pulling the January 2014 Deficit down to $20B through 16 days.

Curiously….we did see a large revenue gain…just not from where I was looking for it, with Taxes withheld…$3.1B last year Thursday 1/17…this year jumped to $10.7B. Now…I won’t pretend to know the intricate details of tax withholding and remittance to treasury…All I know is that generally speaking…Tuesday and Thursday and usually have low tax deposits…in the $2-3B range. Now…we have 2 days…Tuesday 1/7 and now Thursday 1/16 that have broken that pattern in a big way. Ok…enough crazy talk…

Taxes not withheld, which is where I expected to see the gain actually fell from $4.3B last year to $2.5B. That’s not what we want to see, but it’s not really something to worry about….especially if the gain noted above sticks…

Outlays continue to fall…another $3B YOY. It will be interesting if this sticks…and continues for a few more months. Thinking back….it was around a year ago that we were talking about the sequester and the fiscal cliff….but then I guess most of that didn’t really kick in until a few months later. My thoughts are that YOY cuts are going to be slow down a lot in 2014. Looking at defense for example…2013 vs 2012 defense vendor payments were down about 11%. Cutting another 10% on top of that is going to be tough….so if we see this trend continue past say April or so…I’d be surprised…pleasantly I suppose.

To wrap it up…a nice revenue surprise more than offsets a small disappointment….and outlays are still curiously weak. Stay tuned for next week…which could make or break the whole month.

New pattern emerges?

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Tuesday 1/14 2014 was $1.2B followed by a negligible $18M deficit on Wednesday 1/15. This brings the January 2014 deficit through 15 days to $26B…a $9B improvement over the similar period in 2013.

Revenues are down $5B YOY….remember earlier in the month we were at $-9B, so there has been improvement. I am becoming cautiously optimistic though that most of this is timing and we may end up with a solid YOY. Corporate taxes are up $1B YOY…good for a 13% increase… perhaps a good sign since the timing issues affecting the other streams have been more or less worked out of this one thanks to the $7.1B of corporate tax receipts 1/15….and nothing material left for the month.

With corporate taxes behind us…next up is individual income and employment taxes-not withheld. I don’t know the specific due dates, but deposits are currently coming in at about $5B per day….last year they peaked 1/23 at $18.5B. While 2014 is a day behind at this point in our charts…the front edge of these payments appear to be a little bit stronger than last year so far…though that won’t necessarily correlate to a strong finish, it can’t be a bad thing.

Outlays are also down….$16B. Now…$10B of that is likely just the missing day….we’ll catch back up on the backside. The rest is likely spread among several programs…with defense, unemployment, and education spending sticking out the most.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for Monday 1/13/2014 was $7.6B pulling the January 2014 deficit down to $27B through 13 days. YOY….revenues were down $1B and outlays were down $1.5B.

While revenues were down, I suspect some of that is timing….2013 is a day ahead of 2014 now, so revenues driven by day of month instead of day of week are going to jump ahead in our comparison, but we should more or less sync back up by the end of next week. Through 13 days of Jan/2014…I have to say revenues appear healthy once you adjust for timing…that’s a good thing, but the we’ll know a lot more by the end of next week.

Outlays are also looking good…down $17B YOY, and while 2013 has an extra day, the delta is growing. I don’t expect the month to end negative YOY due to some month end timing, but if it sticks, it will be interesting to see where the decreases are coming from.