Daily Deficit

The US Daily Cash Deficit for 9/27/2013 was $1.5B bringing the September 2013 Surplus through 27 days to $35B. I half expected a moderate surplus today, but it wasn’t to be.

So at this point, we are comparing all of September 2012 to September 2013 with one (extra) business day remaining. Revenues are back to flat at only +$2B (0.7%) YOY. Part of that is timing….the last day of the month often has higher than average revenues as special payments are made….like the Fannie/Freddie payments. last year those happened on 9/28..a Friday. this year they will happen on 9/30, a Monday. So we will likely see heavy inflows Monday.

My beginning of the month forecast was a $70B surplus, but that is looking a bit optimistic at this point sitting at $35B, with only one day left. There’s a lot of uncertainty, but we will likely see a large surplus 9/30, I’d guess in the $15-$25B range…$35B would be quite a surprise to me. We’ll find out tomorrow…assuming Treasury is still publishing the DTS during the apparently imminent government shutdown.

The US Daily Cash Deficit for 9/26/2013 was $7.5B bringing the September 2013 Surplus down to $36B with two business days remaining in the month.

Revenue from “Taxes Not Withheld” plummeted under $1B to $388M…..a bit more than expected, but not concerning. Total revenue is now up 3.6% YOY … Outlays are up 10%…all timing, else they would probably be down a little. 2 days left…I expect surpluses both days, especially Monday 9/30, but how much is yet to be seen.

The US Daily Deficit for 9/25/2013 was $9.0B knocking the surplus through 25 days down to $44B with Three business days remaining. Tax deposits not withheld fell to $1B from $4B yesterday….more or less in line with the drop off we expected. For the month, this category is currently up $9B over last year, good for an 18% YOY gain. On the other end of the spectrum, Corporate taxes are basically flat at a little less than 1% YOY, while taxes withheld from paychecks are up 11%.

Total revenues, currently up $10B YOY (3.5%) should continue to grow…before getting a big boost Monday, which is an extra workday over last September and a Monday at that. With strong Fannie/Freddie “dividends”…tacking on another +20B of YOY revenue seems feasible…which would put us pretty close to the +10% we want to see.

On the other hand, that extra business day also gives us an additional day of outlays, which are already at +21B thanks primarily to timing. I’m sticking to my $70B surplus forecast for the rest of the month, though it is starting to look a bit high. However, you never know what kind of fiscal year end surprises are in store, so I’ll be an optimist and hold tight.

The US Daily Cash Surplus for 9/23/2013 was $13.7B as revenues from “Taxes not Withheld” defied the historical trend for the second day in a row, posting $9.1B of cash revenue compared to the comparable year ago (9/24/2012) cash revenue of $5.7B. Last year, these revenues dried up before the end of the week, ending at only $300M on 9/28/2012. If we don’t see a similar crash over the next few days, it wouldn’t take much to handily beat the year ago revenue $ from this source.

So on that strength, revenues show strong YOY gains for the second day in a row, and are now at $+7B….a 3% YOY increase with additional gains looking likely. The Monthly Surplus is now sitting at $52B with 5 business days remaining in the month. There is still plenty of upside left with the likelihood of topping $70B growing by the day(for now).